Fic: Recipes from Pegasus pt2

[anyanka_eg]

Title: Recipes from Pegasus
Rating: PG
Pairing: Subtle McShep and obvious Teyla/Lorne
Spoilers: All 5 seasons
Summary: After the stargate program was de-classified in 2010 and the initial furore died down, the book that captured the zeitgeist of the entire planet, tapping in to the almost insatiable curiosity for all things related to the Stargate Program, was Recipes from Pegasus. It was an accessible way for everyone to understand a little bit more about the people who had spent the last eight years living in an alien galaxy, fighting to keep Earth safe. It's author, Grace Mallory, the head chef of the Atlantis mission became a household name even though she appeared on a very few TV shows during the publicity tour. More importantly her stories about the daily lives of the people of Atlantis made them appear much more human than all the high octane TV specials did.

Note: this is an unformatted version (i.e. without colours and pictures)

 

 

Treats
 

I was going to order the book in the usual way; starters, entrées and desserts. But we don't really cook or eat like that on Atlantis, not everyday anyway. The military run on set shifts, as do some of the civilian staff if there's no emergencies, while the rest of the civilian staff work a nominal nine to five. Most of us civilians don't really stick to those hours, you do what needs doing no matter how long it takes, and some of the scientists seem to follow schedules devised by a random number generator. This makes meal times and choices decidedly erratic.

Despite that we do try to have set meals at the normal times, even if there are usually breakfast dishes on offer along side that day's dinner choice, and so I've structured the chapters to reflect this. Obviously the first chapter should have been breakfast but I thought I'd start with some quick and simple recipes for things that make even the worst days seem just that bit better. It may seem frivolous to some people that we should 'waste' resources on fun items like cookies but these people need to remember that we can't run to the shops and pick up some oreos or a Butterfinger. A lot of the time, until we dial Earth, we don't even know if the shops are still there at all.

 

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Oat Biscuits

Peter Grodin was one of my most favorite people. He was cool, calm and collected when he was working, which during that first year was pretty much all the time, but when he was off duty he was so much fun. Maybe it was because we were both Brits surrounded by a sea of north Americans, maybe it was because we'd both lived in Cambridge (the English one), maybe it was because he was just a great guy. Whatever it was, we clicked.

He was the first, apart from Elizabeth, to come and sit in my little test kitchen and have a nice cup of tea and a sit down. I know that sounds like such a cliché, so very like people imagine the British to behave if it all gets a bit much, but there is something very comforting about tea and a couple of biscuits. I know you all want me to call them cookies but hush, I'm having a British moment here.

We used to sit and have a cuppa with whichever biscuit or treat I had to hand and reminisce about home, as we still thought of Earth then, about TV shows from our childhoods, about food we missed. We discovered a shared love of Dr Who and lemon fondant fancies from Fitzbillies in Cambridge. If you are ever in the city you must try them, or the Chelsea buns this little bakery is famous for. I still love them but now they remind me of how much I miss Peter.

Needless to say I never made lemon fondant fancies in the kitchens of Atlantis, there's no point tempting fate with McKay around, but I did make lots of different sweet treats. Just because you're under threat of immanent death doesn't mean you should be deprived of a cookie with your afternoon coffee or a muffin for your breakfast.

This is the basic oat cookie recipe that my mother makes. To it you can add cocoa (replace about 1 tbsp of the flour), nuts, sultanas, chocolate chips, dried apples, dried cherries or anything you fancy really. I like to to use some tiny, very dark, bitter-sweet chocolate chips that I bought in Germany and stashed in the crates I bought through the gate.

Or you can have these cookies plain because they're lovely as they are.

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Ingredients - makes about 10

1 stick (125g) butter, softened slightly

3.5oz (100g) superfine/caster sugar

4.5oz (125g) cake flour

½ tsp baking powder

2 tbsp rolled oats

 

Method

Heat the oven to 390°F/190°C and grease a baking tray.

In a bowl cream the butter and sugar together until combined and creamy. Add the flour and oats, stirring vigorously to combine. Add any extras you might be using.

Take a heaped teaspoon of the dough and roll into a sphere. Put in the greased tray and press out to a flattened round.

Bake for about 10 minutes, or until golden brown. If you want the cookies chewy remove them from the oven a little bit earlier when they are still soft. If you would like a more crunchy British biscuit turn off the oven, let it cool a little and then return the tray to the oven and leave them in there to crisp up.

 

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Toffee cup tartlets

The first time Rodney's sister Jeanie came to Atlantis was an odd time, not least because of the appearance of a McKay from another dimension. I think the suaver Rod freaked out a lot of folks, making us realize how much we liked our McKays to be a little less polished socially and a whole hell of a lot more shouty. I know all my staff, even the ones Rodney questioned about citrus every day, were secretly pleased when Rod told us the food on his Atlantis wasn't nearly as good as ours.

These exceptionally sweet treats were something Jeannie brought with her to Atlantis. Well, not the actual tartlets because that would have been messy, but the recipe at least. She said she makes them for Madison but quite frankly I agree with Rodney who says they're too good to feed to children. Not that we had to worry about that on Atlantis, at least until recently.

I still don't make these too often though because we don't have access to enough sugar to make the toffee. Sugar beet or sugar cane isn't something that seems to be grown in quantity in the Pegasus galaxy, which means we have to rely on the shipments from Earth, like we do for our good quality flour. This means that we've all lost our tolerance for sugar and even one of these super sweet treats tends to send most of the people who've been out here for a while, loopy. That's another reason not to serve them to kids. Marines hopped up on sugar are bad enough, but kids? That's way more scary.

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Ingredients - makes 12

26oz (750g) sweet (or shortcrust) pastry, shop bought is fine

14 tbsp double cream

8oz (250g) chocolate, a good milk chocolate is best

A handful of unsalted peanuts or pecans, toasted or peanut butter chips

12½ oz (350g) English toffees or caramels

 

Method

Heat the oven to 350°F/180°C and grease a 12 hole tartlet tin.

Roll out the pastry to ¹/₈ inch (3mm) and use a round cutter or a glass to make 12 discs to fit the holes in the tin. Put the rounds in the tin and bake for 20 minutes until crisp but still a pale golden color.

Put the toffees in a non-stick pan with half the cream and heat until the toffees have melted into the cream. Be careful as it will get really hot and stir it constantly or it'll burn. Cut down the amount of cream if the toffees are soft before melted. You should test them. Eat one and if it requires a lot of chewing you need all the cream.

Drop a few nuts or peanut butter chips into each of the tartlet shells and cover with toffee. Leave to cool a little.

Warm the other half of the cream in a pan, then break in the chocolate and stir. Remove from the heat and leave to melt. Stir throughly and then spoon the chocolate cream on top of the nuts and chill until set.

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Chocolate cloud cake

This cake is more like a baked mousse than traditional cake. It's perfect on Atlantis as it doesn't require the use of our precious flour and it's chocolaty enough that it tastes really, really special. I first made it for Miko Kusanagi who was having a really crappy day. A crappy day that happened to be her birthday, a fact she'd failed to mention to anyone.

It wasn't long after the Genii had tried to take the city, so everyone was more than a little tense and the usual 'discussions' in the labs may have gotten out of hand. I doubt any of it was actually aimed at Miko specifically but some of Rodney's insults do tend to inflict a certain amount of collateral damage.

Anyway, Miko ended up crying in one of the storerooms. It was Radek who found her, bless him, and wheedled the whole story out of her. He came to me to try to fix it because all the chocolate in general circulation had run out, and he knew there was no way even Rodney could get past the security on the mess' stocks. Not before a squad of marines would arrive to escort him to the brig, anyway.

It became a birthday tradition after that, a single chocolate cake for the person celebrating to share with their friends or keep all to themselves. Miko even got an apology out of Rodney. He sounded sincere but then the promise of chocolate cake is a strong motivator.

You can top this cake with whipped cream flavored with vanilla or Cointreau and dusted with cocoa. It looks fabulous like that but not everyone likes cream and so I'd suggest serving the cream on the side if you want to serve it at all. Personally I love it naked...the cake that is.

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Ingredients - makes about 8 slices

9oz (250g) dark chocolate, minimum 70% cocoa solids

1 stick (125g) unsalted butter, softened (not melted)

6 eggs: 2 whole, 4 separated

6oz (175g) superfine/caster sugar

 

Method

Preheat the oven to 355ºF/180ºC and line the bottom of a greased 9”/23cm springform cake tin with baking parchment or greaseproof paper.

Melt the chocolate in either a double boiler or a microwave, and then let the butter melt in the warm chocolate

Beat the 2 whole eggs and the 4 egg yolks with 2½ oz (75g) of the sugar and then gently stir in the slightly cooled chocolate mixture.

In another bowl whisk the 4 egg whites until foamy and then gradually add the remaining sugar and whisk until the mixture holds its shape but is not too stiff.

Lighten the chocolate mixture by adding a big spoonful of egg whites and stirring it in. Then add the rest of the eggs slowly, gently folding them in and trying not to loose the air from them. Pour into the prepared cake tin and bake in the oven for 35-40 minutes or until the cake is risen and cracked, and the center no longer wobbles. Cool in the tin on a wire rack. The center will sink as it cools so don't panic.

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Strawberry Mivvies

These were my favorite Popsicle (except we called them ice lollies in the UK) when I was a child and I always hoped my grandmother had them in her freezer for me. She usually did, much to my mother's frustration, and there's something about strawberries paired with vanilla ice cream that transports me back to summers when I was growing up. All lazy days, fishing in ponds, building dens and endless sunshine. At least that's how I remember it.

For some reason strawberries weren't something we brought with us when we first came through the gate, even in seed form, so I figured they were a pleasure from Earth that I'd have to learn to forget. Then, in the second year, Katie Brown found the strawberry trees on an uninhabited moon of MX-576 and for four weeks a year we had a glut of the little blue fruits that tasted exactly like strawberries. With the promise of Popsicles as a reward, it was remarkable how quickly the scientists managed to produce sets of molds, with increasingly complex designs, and an ice cream maker that is to this day the best I've ever used.

Everyone loved these, minus the lime in Rodney's case, and the first evening we served them in the mess had something of a party atmosphere to it. We later made other variations using different fruit and ice cream but these were always the most popular. Except for maybe the more adult ones I made with some of Radek Zalenka's rot gut, mashed tree-strawberries and a good twist of black pepper for our ladies movie night. They made the alcohol just about bearable and, without the ice cream core, dealt with Kate Heightmeyer's lactose intolerance.

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Ingredients - makes 4

1 pint (0.5L) top quality vanilla ice cream

7oz (200g) strawberries

3 tbsp superfine/caster sugar

A squeeze of lime juice

 

Method

Allow the ice cream to soften very slightly before popping it out of it's tub. If it's not a block shape mold it into a block and then cut it into 4 pieces, checking the pieces are just a little smaller than your popsicle molds.

Push a popsicle stick into each of the blocks, wrap in plastic food wrap and press the ice cream around the stick. Lay them on a tray and put them back in the freezer.

Put the strawberries in the food processor or blender and whiz to a purée. Add the sugar and the lime juice to taste; if the strawberries are very sweet you might not need all the sugar.

Sieve the purée and pour into the popsicle molds to come about halfway up each mold.

Unwrap the ice cream coated sticks and push them into the molds so they are coated with strawberry mixture up to the start of the stick. Top with more purée if needed. Freeze until solid.

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Cosmopolitan jellies

The story behind these decadent little jellies, the grown up cousin of the jell-o shot, is one that I was sure I shouldn't tell as there were reputations on the line. But I was assured by all those involved that if Ronon didn't have a problem, then neither did they. I asked, he didn't.

So, here goes. Some time in the fourth year we were on Atlantis the complete Sex and the City box set arrived. To this day no one will admit to ordering it, and I suspect that it was a joke on the part of one of the marines' buddies back on Earth.

The discs sat around in the main rec room for a couple of months, the butt of a lot of jokes, slowly gathering dust. Then, one evening, Ronon was 'bonding' with the guys he'd spent the day beating to a pulp when he suggested watching them. Despite the ribbing he must have received from the soldiers he insisted and no one was going to argue with him, not after the pounding they'd received that day. They probably figured he'd get bored with it in no time.

Instead the opposite happened and they found themselves drawn into the story. The fashion and the shoe-lust mostly only seemed to grip the female marines but the they all were strangely wrapped up in the frivolous stories of Carrie and her friends. I suppose it was a total escape from a life of space vampires and being shot at by angry natives.

Sex and the City evenings became a regular event, although no one outside the marines knew about it until Ronon asked Sheppard to order Dr. Keller a pair of Jimmy Choos. He even had the style picked out for her, something Sheppard counseled against once he'd gotten over the shock of the initial request. Surprisingly, Jennifer loved them, still does, even if she rarely gets to wear them. I must admit to coveting them myself.

These jellies seemed the perfect thing to send down to the guys during one of their evenings, especially after we found the Ancient 'martini glasses' out in a room by the north pier. We also had a glut of not-quite-cranberries and some less than toxic Telith moonshine. They became a fixture of the evenings, even after we realized the 'glasses' were in fact parts for the big bacterial protein generators we found later. I think everyone figured the alcohol would kill anything dangerous.

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Ingredients - makes 4

4½ oz (125g) orange jell-o

2 cups (475ml) cranberry juice

⅓ cup citron vodka

½ lime, juiced

orange zest cut into thin strips

 

Instructions

Cut the jell-o into pieces (scissors are easier than a knife) and then put the bits into a jug with about 5 tbsp of the cranberry juice. Microwave for about 1 minute until the jelly has dissolved completely.

Stir in the remaining cranberry juice, vodka and lime juice, then pour into 4 Martini glasses. Chill for a couple of hours or until the jelly has set.

Serve with a twist of orange zest for a classic Cosmopolitan finish.

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Hot Schnocolate

I have to admit this recipe comes straight out of a Nigella Lawson cookery book that my mother sent me for Christmas three years ago and it became an instant hit with pretty much everyone on Atlantis. In fact the whole book became a bit of a bible for us that Christmas, introducing some new dishes and reviving people's memories of old favorites.

Christmas is always a bit of an odd season, mostly because it falls in the hight of summer on New Lantea, but also because everyone who does celebrate Christmas feels somehow they're imposing themselves on those who don't. Of course, as Dr Hassan Mahmood pointed out, it's not like eating a turkey dinner and giving a gift to someone who is your friend requires you to believe in the virgin birth. Equally you don't have to have been observing a Ramadan fast all day to enjoy Hassan's favorite harira soup for dinner.

The Christmas I got the recipe book we had sackfuls mocklate that no one was eating. It had been rather hastily traded for by Maj. Anne Teldy's team on M77-034 after Dr Porter got seduced by the smell and forgot to taste it, hence the name. Unfortunately while it did smell of chocolate, it didn't quite taste like it. Oh it was close, especially in the first few seconds in the mouth, but then there was something very subtly wrong with the aftertaste. The unexpected difference was so disappointing that it actually made it worse than if it had tasted nothing like chocolate at all.

So, we had the sacks of disappointing mocklate and in the back of the stores we had three bottles of peppermint schnapps. I have no idea how they got there. They appeared on no inventory we could find, no one remembered unloading them and no one knew how long they'd been there. McKay and Beckett analyzed them to make sure they were indeed just bottles of ordinary alcohol (which they were) and since then we've all come to accept Radek's theory that eventually all homes develop a mysterious bottle of schnapps that no one can remember buying.

Strangely the peppermint entirely hides the wrongness of the mocklate and it tastes exactly right. It's amazing and with a candy cane stuck in the top even the most hard-nosed marine sergeant suddenly becomes a kid again, thinking about leaving a drink for Santa and carrots for his reindeer.

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Ingredients - makes 2 mugs

2 cups full fat milk

3ｽ oz (100g) good quality dark chocolate, chopped

4tsp sugar

8 tbsp peppermint schnapps

1/2 cup cream, whipping or thick (double)

3 peppermint candy canes

 

Instructions

Whip the cream up and set aside.

Put the milk and the chocolate in a pan and warm gently until the chocolate is melted. Add the sugar and stir well. Bring it almost to the boil but you mustn't let it boil at any time. Remove from the heat and stir in the peppermint schnapps. Leave to one side as you crush one of the candy canes.

Pour the chocolate into 2 mugs and top with whipped cream. Sprinkle on the crushed candy cane and slip a full cane into each mug. Serve to the first big marine you can find and watch them grin like a big kid.

For those who want it non-alcoholic just add a couple of drops of peppermint essence instead of the schnapps Or you can infuse the milk with a stick of cinnamon and a chili, halved and de-seeded) before straining and then melting in the chocolate. Don't add the peppermint schnapps, but you can put in a glug of brandy.


Part 3