This was a fail, but I’ll give you the details anyway. I eventually rescued it.

I made the Allrecipes char siu recipe. It’s a simple one that’s like teriyaki, but with added hoisin sauce, five spice, and rice wine. I omit the ketchup, subbed more brown sugar for honey (because I don’t have honey). It was really good on strips of rib meat.

So I wanted a pork chop that tasted similar. I took the sauce and used it to marinate and glaze pork chops. I baked the chops. They came out tough. I decided to eat it anyway.

I know – sugar is banned – but I’m guesstimating that one chop has around 5-10g of sugar on it. This was breakfast. Totally filling, and the bland cabbage and celery leftovers were a good compliment.

It looks like it’s more than half meat, but a lot of this steak is bone.

The pork chop came out too tough. It hit the extra tough spot between cooked enough, and cooked until it falls off the bone.

I figured there were two options: bbq and slow roasting it for a while, or braising it. Since it’s cold out, I picked braising.

My steamer setup is this: a small aluminum bowl/pot, in an aluminum pan of water. Chopsticks help keep the pot separated from the pan. A lid fits over it all, creating the steamer.

I simmered for around half an hour, and the meat softened up considerably. The braising liquid was the sauce, some pan drippings, and water. So, it worked.