Five Spice Grilled Meat

We recently reached out to some of our users, and in their generosity and creativity they shared their Cinder Grill Creations with us. First up is Adisak Pochanayon, immensely creative and profoundly prolific. We couldn’t choose just one recipe! Here is Five Spice Cinder Grilled Meat, a lively grilled dish to brighten up any season.

NOTE: works with around 2 lbs of almost any meat (pork belly, short rib, chicken, etc)

1/2 cup water
1/2 cup mirin or (sweet) sake
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup sugar
1 Tablespoon Salt
1 tablespoon Five Spice Blend (save the rest for the next time you make this!)

Bring to a light boil in a small saucepan and stir until sugar dissolves. Then simmer and add spices.
A generous blend of favorite spices for five spice. I technically used 9 spices in this "five spice". The first set of spices here are the "traditional five spice" and then the second set are optional additional spices I used but you can add many other optional spices to your own blend.

Primary Five Spices:

Cinnamon Stick (Powdered Cinnamon is fine too)
Star Anise and/or Anise Seed and/or Fennel Seed
Cloves
Szechuan Peppercorns
Ginger (I used fresh grated ginger that I freeze as you can see in picture)

Optional spices:

Galangal (I used dried)
Long Pepper
Fresh grated nutmeg

Add the spices to the marinade mix and steep at low temp for 20-30 min. Let marinade cool.
Bag marinade with meat in a sous vide vacuum bag or a ziplock freezer bag. Optionally marinate overnight in your fridge. For "long cooks", you can cook and marinade at the same time in the bag on the Cinder.
When you cook, the meat, you can do the main cook on the Cinder grill in the bag you used to marinate. Cook at appropriate time and temp for the type of meat you chose to make.
Once the meat has cooked, open the bag and put the meat on paper towels on a plate. Reserve liquid marinade.
Heat Cinder to "Sear"
In a small sauce pan, mix 1 tablespoon corn starch and the strained leftover marinade. Bring to a boil while stirring and simmer at a light boil until it thickens a bit. This is your "five spice sauce" for finishing.
Sear the meat on the Cinder (if you use a parchment sear, there is almost no cleanup other than a quick wipedown for this entire recipe). Place meat on plates. Finish by brushing with thickened five spice sauce.