IP Chu hou and spiced beef brisket

Been searching around elusively to recreated my mom's thinly spiced beef shin, served cold. I think it's probably closest to Christine's spiced beef shin because she doesn't use chu hou and uses sichuan peppercorns. The recipe by China Sichuan for braised beef shank is a lot more complicated as it involves a lot more aromatics (leek, green onion, shallots, ginger), spices (bay leaf, sichuan peppercorn, cumin, fennel, black and green cardamon) and also uses beef stock. No doubt delicious but also not the kind of spices I have handy.

Since I had Chu Hou, I decided to follow Omnivore's recipe because it uses the IP. Here's my adaptation. She cut up the meat to reduce cooking time but I prefer to leave it whole so I can serve it cold and thinly sliced. While I also blanched the beef to remove impurities, I didn't bother with the separate blanching ingredients. I don't normally blanch but this time I did and I'm glad I did because boy, the blanching liquid was so smelly! She uses it in her braising liquid later and even suggests keeping the remainder but I found my liquid too smelly. Maybe it was because my brisket was thawed, who knows.

Ingredients
1 to 1.2kg beef brisket
2 cinnamon sticks
4 star anise
2 cloves garlic, smashed
2 thick slices ginger
¼C shaoxing
2 tbsp dark soya sauce
4 tbsp light soya sauce
2 tbsp rock sugar
1½C water

Method
1. Bring water to a boil. Blanch the meat for 10 minutes. Drain in a colander and wash off as much impurities as you can. At this point, I smell the water, if it's too smelly, I throw it out. If not, I skim off the impurities and set aside.
2. In the IP, turn on to Saute. With about a tbsp of oil, saute the cinnamon, star anise, garlic, and ginger until fragrant (about 2 minutes)
3. Pour in the shaoxing and deglaze the pot by scraping up all the brown bits of goodness.
4. Put the beef back.
5. Add the dark soya, light soya, rock sugar, and water.
6. Bring back to a boil and again, skim off any impurities and oil that floats up.
7. Switch to Meat/Stew and pressure cook for 1 hour (1kg) to 1 hour 10 minutes (1.2kg).
8. Allow the pressure to naturally release.
9. Best to let the beef steep in the braising liquid overnight.
10. Next day, skim off the fat that has congealed and slice the beef thinly. The sauce can be reduced to serve with or used for something else (e.g., cooking vegetables). Serve with steamed rice.

Soaking overnight in the braising liquid

Recipe feedback
It is very close to my childhood tastes except my mom liked it a lot sweeter. I kinda like this less sweet version. I find it strange however that cloves weren't use. For proper Chinese 5-spice, cloves are needed. I'll add a few next time.