So the Little Man is a big fan of Fallout. He’s explained the premise of the video game to me a few times, and I’m still a little fuzzy on what’s going on, but I’ve gathered that American culture, in the game, froze about 1950, but nuclear power got bigger than it did in real life. So… I’m not likely to ever play the game. I just don’t do video games. But he was gifted a number of themed items for Christmas, and the one he’d begged for was, of all things, the Fallout Cookbook.
I may not game, but I do cook. The Junior Mad Scientist was the one who gifted the book to him, with my foreknowledge and complete support, and she was the one who helped him prepare the meal. I’m very proud of both of them! I only helped by making sure the ingredients were available to them, and although I’d planned to be on hand to offer guidance, as it turned out, I wasn’t there, and they managed it all on their own with some support from the always helpful Google. Given what I do know of the game, this artificial intelligence assistance is remarkably appropriate, actually!
The dinner menu was:
- Deathclaw Steak
- Blamco Mac ‘n Cheese
- Rice
- Mutfruit Crumble
Now, I did make the crumble. It’s remarkably like my Blackberry Crisp, to be honest!
The ‘Deathclaw’ was an awful lot like teriyaki. I thought it was tasty! And the Little Man did an excellent job of cooking it until the meat was falling apart and full of flavor.
- 2 1/2 lbs
Deathclaw Steakcountry ribs - 1 tbsp. sugar
- 2 tbsp. brown sugar
- 1/3 c water
- 1 c sake (you can, as they looked up, substitute rice wine vinegar and water. Then they found my sake bottle)
- 1 c soy sauce
- 2 tbsp. rice wine vinegar
- 3 tbsp. Hoisin sauce
- three-inch piece of fresh ginger, peeled (they substituted dried ground ginger, having not found my bottle of ginger paste)
- 3 garlic cloves
- 2 lemongrass stalks
- 3 bay leaves
- 3 star anise
- 3 cardamom pods
- 1 cinnamon stick
- 2 dried chiles de arbol (they substituted red pepper flakes)
- 1 tbsp. peppercorns
Place the pork into a large pot (they used my largest stock pot. It was almost too big for the oven!) and cover it with cold water. Heat at med-high until just boiling, then reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes. Remove pork from water and cut into bite-size pieces (the Little Man says this is hard to do).
Preheat oven to 325. Put the sugars, and water, in the oven proof pot (they used my stockpot. Fortunately it’s all metal) and heat at med-high, whisking to stir, until dissolved. Add the pork pieces, stir, then add all the other ingredients to the pot (they added the lemon grass stalks almost intact. I recommend cutting them into inch-long lengths first). Bring to a boil.
Cover the pot and transfer to the oven. Bake for an hour. Increase oven to 375 and take the lid off. Bake for another hour, stirring every 15 minutes.
Remove pot from oven and let rest. We pulled the meat out with tongs, then strained the liquid into a small saucepan and discarded all the aromatics (lemongrass, bay leaves, peppercorn, et al). We cooked the liquid until it thickened a bit into a sauce. Served with rice, green onion slices, and sesame seeds!
Comments
12 responses to “DeathClaw Steak and other Adventures”
Looks yummy! And the kids are getting great cooking skills!
They are, if they can tackle this, they can do anything.
man if I’d have known, I woulda sent you some of the Nuka-Cola Quantum branded Johnson’s Cream Soda.
We have nuka-cola syrup aging in the fridge! He also wants to make Quantum, that recipe is in the book too. It called for citric acid, which I did not know you could buy. But now we have some.
Around here it’s found in the Middle Eastern markets, where it’s called “sour salt”.
A couple Christmases ago, my eldest daughter gave me a Vault Boy and a Brotherhood of Steel figurine, but I hadn’t heard of the Fallout cookbook. I’ll have to try the Deathclaw recipe!
In the Fallout games, my approach to deathclaws is to avoid them if at all possible. Also, from what I’ve heard, Fallout 76 is buggy to beat the band. Does your son have any opinion on that?
The Boy was only recently able to play Fallout 4, and doesn’t own 76. Amanda Green blogged about it, and it sound like ‘buy on deep sale if at all’.
23 skidoo
I just put my hat on, so I could take it off!
Mad props to The Little Man and The Junior Mad Scientist, for this is an astounding accomplishment. I was 19 years old before I could make spaghetti, and 25 before I could fry a chicken; that they are planning and achieving a meal this sophisticated, WITHOUT requiring that The Genius Chef (the only living winner of THREE Nobel prizes) be on hand every second, shows that they have vision, determination, and the ability to work together as a team.
Which doesn’t even address the outcome: that’s a meal Gordon Ramsey would be happy to serve, and he’d charge the diner a minimum of $20-$30, probably more in the $50-$100 range, if he was able to emphasize the theme by having the restaurant decorated with piles of smoking rubble, and have the server blast the occasional critter sneaking up on the diner. Sure to result in a big tip, that last service. (He would insist that the portion sizes be reduced, though; I think that’s a thing of his.)
I am very, very impressed. This bodes great things, great things!
That’s really awesome… and I am very, very glad they found an ovensafe stockpot, even if by random chance. Great success on first try, with only a few “What do we do now?” moments, will hopefully bring more experimentation and kitchen skills (and life skills) down the road!
Vegetables come in time. Usually after the freshman 15 (followed by the sophomore 20, and the junior “I just learned I can go to the gym on campus without extra fees, and hey, vegetables!” 😛
What would you recommend as a substitute for the pork ribs? Would beef short ribs work, or should I try another cut of meat? Because I really want to make this, and my family would love it, but I can’t eat pork, and I’m selfish enough to want to make meals I can eat.
The recipe called for pork belly, we used country-style ribs because they were out of belly that day. Short ribs would work fine – you want a fattier cut, and one that will stand up the the braise.