Soy-Braised Beef

I'm having serious difficulties with Blogger's image upload function so bear with me. I took this photo with my cell phone because I absolutely love this crockpot. This is a faux wood-paneled lovely from the church kitchen. If you are having difficulty in reading it, it's the "Canadianna [sic] Crockery Cooker by... (drumroll please) K-mart"!. I thought I would put up a recipe that has probably never been made in this gem.

3 lb cross rib or blade roast
4 each carrots and green onions
2 whole star anise or 6 whole cloves
2 pieces dried tangerine peel or peel from 1 tangerine, mandarin or clementine (or, if you're doing this in a crockpot, use grated orange rind)
1 tsp peppercorns
1 piece (2") cinnamon stick, broken
1 piece (1 1/2") ginger, sliced
3 cloves garlic
1/2 c dark soy sauce
2 T rice wine or dry sherry
1 t sugar
28 oz can tomatoes, undrained and coarsely chopped
1 T Chinese black vinegar or balsamic vinegar

Cut beef and carrots into 2" chunks. Thinly slice whites of onions and chop greens into 1/2" lengths. Set aside seperately.

Cut cheesecloth into 7" square and tie up star anise, tangerine peel, peppercorns, cinnamon and ginger.

In shallow Dutch oven, combine all (except onion greens and vinegar) with 1 cup water and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat, cover and simmer until meat is tender (about 1 1/2 hours). Discard the spice bag, stir in the vinegar and onion greens and simmer till the onions are wilted, about 5 minutes.

For crockpot: combine all but vinegar and onion greens in the crock with 1/4 c water(note the reduction of the water, please, you will regret adding a cup of water unnecessarily to a crockpot). Add the spice bag and cook covered for 5-6 hours on low. Whisk together 1 T cornstarch with 1/4 c water and whisk into slow cooker. Increase heat to high and cook covered for about 10 minutes before adding onion greens, orange rind and vinegar.

The best part of this recipe was getting to use my star anise. It feeds something like 6-8 people but freezes wicked well because there's no starch in it really. It was really good over steamed rice.