I've tried bak kwa on several occasions (in 2012 and 2018) but it was never perfect. It never tasted correct as in it tasted like bbq meat and while that was nice in itself, it was not bak kwa. Ingredients from Burning Kitchen and method from Lazy Awesome Dad and adapted for the amount of meat we had. The bacon was my suggestion.
Ingredients
500g minced pork
200g maple smoked bacon
10 tbsp sugar
2 dashes of pepper
1½ tbsp Chinese rose cooking wine
¼ tsp five spice powder
1 tbsp oyster sauce
2 tbsp dark soya sauce
1 tbsp light soya sauce
2 tbsp honey
1 tsp sesame oil
Glaze
1 tbsp hot water
2 tbsp honey or maltose
Method
1. Chop up the bacon into little pieces. In a food processor, process the bacon until ground.
2. Mix the bacon and the minced pork. Add all the ingredients and mix very well. Use a chopstick and mix in one direction only until sticky.
3. Cover and refrigerate to allow it to marinade for at least 8 hours or overnight.
4. The next day, put parchment onto baking tray. This is very important otherwise clean up will be impossible.
5. Measure out the parchment of paper and double that. Fold in half and score the end. Open the parchment and put on ⅓ of the mixture. Close the parchment on top and using a combination of your hands and the rolling pin, roll it out to about 1 to 2mm thick (see Lazy Awesome Dad's video). Try to avoid rolling until the ends and leave a gap at each end. Once you're done, transfer onto the parchment and lift off one half of the parchment and cut it off. Repeat for the other 2 trays.
6. Bake at 175 deg C for 7 minutes. Use a pizza cutter and cut into slices, around 10 by 10 cm. Flip.
7. Return to cook for another 10 minutes but swap the upper and lower trays going back into the oven.
8. To really create that BBQ flavour, it has to be grilled on the BBQ. Brush with the diluted honey/maltose glaze and flip until nicely charred. Serve immediately.
