烤肉
kǎo roù · HSK 5
barbecue (lit. roast meat)
🍖 烤肉 = 烤 (roast) + 肉 (meat)
烤 kǎo means to roast or grill (note the 火 fire radical on the left). 肉 ròu means meat. Together: roasted meat, i.e. barbecue. The 火 radical is your anchor for anything heat-related.
烤 — fire radical 火 + 考 (kǎo, phonetic)
烤 is a semantic-phonetic compound. The fire radical 火 on the left signals the meaning—cooking with heat, roasting or baking—while 考 on the right supplies the sound kǎo. It is a relatively modern character, popularized in the 20th century to write the everyday verb 'to roast,' as in 烤鸭 (roast duck).
肉 — pictograph of a slab of meat with ribs/striations
肉 is a pictograph originally depicting a piece of butchered meat, showing the outer cut and the striations of muscle or ribs inside. The character has meant 'flesh' or 'meat' since oracle bone times. As a radical it is usually written 月 on the left or bottom of characters relating to the body (e.g. 肝, 胃).