DeathClaw Steak and other Adventures

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.

Using mid-century bowls for this cookbook feels right! It's about aesthetic the kids tell me.

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!

Delicious dinner. There's a dearth of vegetables, I noticed.

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 Steak country 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!

The BlamCo mac 'n cheese was bland, except, well, berbere!(they didn't realize paprika would work, so they used my berbere in the recipe. I laughed) But it also had the hidden vegetables - there are two carrots in there, run through the blender.

The Mutfruit Crumble turned out beautifully. Individual pots make the kids happy for some reason.