Five Spiced Beef Short Ribs & Spicy Broccoli in Chinese Rice Wine

Broccoli. What is it to you?
To me...
- 2-3 pieces of annoyingly raw and tasteless florets always appear beside my fast-food-joint sizzling steak, along with equally annoying pieces of raw and tasteless carrot. Normally I still (really really reluctantly) eat them (out of guilt)
- It is a great supporting actor/extra. It would be nice to see them winning an award for a leading role sometime
- It tastes fantastic with butter, cream and bacon (but what doesn't?)
- When it's done right, the stem is nutty and the florets greedily absorb whichever poison you throw them into (oh yeah...)
- It is a luxury. Despite its anti-cancer fame and its great taste, I hardly choose broccoli for weekday meals because I don't want to spend valuable minutes having to blanch and shock them. On week nights, every second counts!

I wanted to make my broccoli more than just an extra. If it had to play a supporting role...it should flavor its azz off and win the audience's heart.

Five Spiced Beef Short Ribs & Spicy Broccoli in Chinese Rice Wine

The pan fried five spiced short ribs are smoky, sweet-savoury and rich...the broccoli has to be subtle enough not to overpower the ribs, but still flavorful and fragrant enough to be noticed. The Chinese rice wine gives the tang needed to balance the flavor of the ribs.

Recipe
The Ribs
- 1 lb short ribs, cut into pieces, poke all over with fork
The Marinate
- salt
- sugar (salt vs sugar ratio = 1:1)
- ginger powder (or you can use crushed ginger)
- five spice powdera
- white pepper
- 1 tbsp corn starch
- sesame oil
Rub marinate all over the ribs, rest for at least 30 minutes. Pan fry on a hot pan (you almost need no oil, the ribs will release some oil) until you get enough brownage, don't flip them around too much to keep 'em tender, if possible just flip them once (I know how tempting it is to flip and turn and flip and turn. Just tell yourself to STOPPP!)

Broccoli
- 2 small heads of broccoli, cut into small florets, boil for a few minutes with a bit of salt until they reach your desired tenderness, drain and dip them into ice cold water to retain greenage
- 2 cloves of garlic, crushed
- 2 cm ginger, crushed
- 2 small red chilli, chopped (I didn't remove the seeds. I enjoy the extra "bite". If you don't like things spicy, remove core and seeds or omit chilli)
- 3 cloves of shallot, thinly sliced
- salt, sugar, white pepper, chinese rice wine, a bit of hot water
Saute shallot and ginger, add garlic, chilli, wait until fragrant, add broccoli, season with salt, sugar, white pepper, chinese rice wine, add a bit of hot water to blend everything, bring to boil, drain, serve with the ribs.

Submitting this recipe to Weekend Wokking - Broccoli, created by Wandering Chopsticks, hosted this month by Noob Cook. Check out the round up for some serious broccoliciousness!