Friday Recipe: Chinese-Style Roasted Beef Shortribs

It's been a while since I posted a recipe, and last week, I came up
with a real winner, so I thought I'd share it.

I absolutely love beef short ribs. They're one of the nicest cuts
of beef - they've got lots of meat, but they're well marbled with fat, and they're up against the bone, which gives them extra flavor. When cooked well, they've got an amazing flavor and a wonderful texture.

This recipe produces the best short ribs I've ever had. It's based,
loosely, on a chinese recipe, but it's cooked more in a western style.
There's one unusual ingredient, which is a chinese sauce that I've mentioned before on the blog, called sha cha sauce. It's made from brill shrimp,
garlic, and chili peppers. You can get it in a chinese grocery store. The english label is, unfortunately, "barbeque sauce", but you can identify it
by the ingredients, and by the picture of the jar over to the side.

xia cha.

Ingredients

• 4 lbs shortribs, bone in, cut flanken style. (That means
  cut perpendicular to the bone, in chunks about 2 inches long.)
• One large onion.
• 4 cloves garlic. (more if you really like garlic)
• 1 cup soy sauce.
• 1 cup beef stock.
• 1 cup dry gin.
• 4 tablespoons sugar.
• One teaspoon xia cha sauce.

Instructions

1. Put the garlic and onion into a food processor, and
   run it until they're nicely chopped. Then add the liquids to
   the processor, and run it until the garlic and onions are a puree
   mixed into the liquids.
2. Put the short ribs into an oven-safe deep dish, and cover them with
   the liquid. Put this into the fridge for a few hours to marinate.
3. Heat the oven to 350, and put the marinated shortribs into the
   oven - marinade and all. Cook for 3 hours, taking it out and basting it every 30 minutes.
4. By now, you've got some very well-cooked shortribs, sitting in the marinade, along with a huge amount of fat that cooked out of them. Take them out of the liquid, and set them aside.
5. Strain the liquid, and skim the fat. What's left is a very strong, but very flavorful sauce.
6. Put the shortribs back into the now empty pan. Give them a light baste
   with the sauce. Heat the oven up to broil, and when it's hot, put the
   short ribs back in, just long enough to brown and crisp the outside.

And they're ready to eat. Serve it with the sauce on the side, along
with rice and some stir-fried vegetables.