Chinese-style roast pork with pickled ginger soba noodles

I roasted pork for the first time! And I did something different with the noodles. I usually would use noodles (so far have used somen, hofun, beehoon, egg noodles and soba noodles in my cooking) in stirfries or soups, so it was kinda nice to try something different with them. The recipe I looked at called for shaoxing (Chinese rice wine), something I didn't have and not likely to use a lot so I didn't go out to buy it. Instead, I used mirin (sweet cooking sake) and rice vinegar. I figured - mirin is alcohol made from rice so it shouldn't be too different to shaoxing, right? It was yummy anyway.. (Rob really liked it).

Chinese-style Roast Pork

Ingredients
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 tsp grated ginger
2 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp honey
1 tbsp mirin
1/2 tsp five spice powder
2 tbsp hoisin sauce
500g lean pork fillet, halved widthways

Method
Preheat the oven to 200degC. Combine all the ingredients except for the pork. Add about 2/3 of the mixture to the pork (the other 1/3 is for the soba noodles) and coat the meat well and allow to marinate for at least 15minutes in the fridge. Half-fill a roasting pan with water and rest a wire rack across the top and place the pork on the rack (reserve the marinade) and roast in the oven for 15minutes. Remove from the oven, brush with marinade, turn the pork and roast for a further 15 minutes until tender. Slice and serve with steamed rice (or the pickled ginger soba noodles) and veges.

Pickled Ginger Soba Noodles

Ingredients
150g soba noodles
2 tbsp sliced pickled ginger
1 tbsp sesame oil

Method
Prepare the noodles according to the packet instructions, then drain. Toss with the pickled ginger, sesame oil and remaining 1/3 marinade and serve in a bowl with the sliced roast pork and veges.