Fic: Recipes from Pegasus pt3

[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)

 

Breakfast

I feel a little but like I'm cheating having a separate chapter on breakfasts because most days there's really nothing special about the meals we serve first thing in the morning. There's cereals from Earth (when we have them), oatmeal, eggs (powdered when we can't get fresh), cured meats, fruit, cheese, noodles (because more people than just the Chinese scientists love them) and of course bread (toasted or otherwise).

Some days though, especially Sundays because there's always some portion of the city on enforced downtime, we make a little bit more of a fuss about the meal. The recipes here are the ones that have become favorites over the years.

As I mentioned before, meal times do tend to merge into each other and obviously the dishes here work just as well at any time of the day really. The green eggs and ham pie are hugely popular for packed lunches or picnics and omelets are always great for a quick supper.

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French eggs

This is a 'special occasion' breakfast treat that became a bit of a holiday favorite after Rodney asked me to make them for John Sheppard for his birthday. I'm still not sure how they ended up talking about long lost breakfasts of their childhoods but apparently it's just the thing to while away the time waiting for the rest of your team to dig you out. I don't think John expected Rodney to remember the conversation and put it to such good use.

Apparently this recipe, known as oeufs en croustade in finer circles than the Atlantis mess, was an indulgence one of the Sheppard family's cooks made when the colonel was a boy. I don't think he'll mind me saying that all the people who hadn't hacked his records were surprised when we found out about his family background and the perceived luxury he had growing up. I don't think it's luxury if your fondest memory of your twelfth birthday is what the family help cooked you.

I don't offer French eggs in the mess every day because they don't lend themselves to mass catering but they're always on offer on high days and holidays. If suitably bribed I can be persuaded to put together a small batch of them for someone's birthday, even making enough for the lucky person's significant other. I've even been known to make the hollandaise without the lemon juice for certain people's other halves.

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Ingredients �serves 4

Easy hollandaise Sauce (or cheat and buy some in a jar)

2 egg yolks

3¼ oz (90g) unsalted butter

1 tablespoon white wine vinegar

juice of 1/2 lemon

to taste salt

Croustades

1 stale unsliced white loaf

1 1/3 oz (50g) butter, melted

1 garlic clove, crushed

4 eggs

1 tsp finely chopped parsley

Method

Hollandaise

Melt the butter in a small pan until very hot, but be careful it doesn't burn. Meanwhile place the egg yolks, salt and pepper in a food processor, and give it a high speed buzz for about 10 seconds. Switch the food processor on a medium speed, and slowly pour in the hot butter until it becomes a thick foamy sauce. Add the lemon juice and vinegar.

Croustades

Pre-heat the oven to 350°F/180°C.

Cut four 1¼ inch (3cm) thick slices from the bread and cut off the crusts. Trim each slice to a 3½ inch (9cm) square, then use a 2½ inch (6.5cm) round cutter to cut a circle in the center of the bread, without cutting all the way through. Use a knife to scoop out the bread from the center to make a hollow.

Mix together the melted butter and garlic and brush all over the bread. Place on a baking tray and bake for 8 minutes, or until crisp and lightly golden. Keep warm.

Assembly

Poach the eggs, 2 at a time (or however you feel comfortable doing it), drain on paper towels and trim of and straggly white bits. Place an egg in each bread hollow and top with a little hollandaise sauce. Sprinkle with chopped parsley and serve with the remaining sauce.

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Eggs Arnold Bennett

My mother used to make this dish every so often and it naturally sprang to mind when one of the teams traded some aspirin for vast quantities of smoked fish from the Noth. In that first year we took every trade we could; barrels of tofu like stuff from the Ha Nath Non, dried almost apples from Roogoon, bags of live, snapping clam-things from Yullen, vitamin packed but quasi-poisonous purple leaves from P-215. Smoked fish wasn't so bad. There was just an awful lot of it.

Mixing the fish with the appalling dried eggs we had made the eggs way more palatable and the fish a little less monotonous. Once we re-established contact with Earth and some bright spark at the SGC finally thought to send chickens to us (in Ancient stasis pods, which freaked the crap out of McKay when he opened them) we stopped having to use the dried eggs, except for baking.

The chickens lived out in a big run on the main balcony of one of the botany labs we use for our crop foods, fondly known as the farm. They're let out during the day and wander round the beds, grubbing for the worms and insects we added to the soil. There's a rota for feeding and caring for them but a lot of people seem to find themselves down on the farm, feeding the chickens seeds and generally making friends with the birds. There is a photo of Chuck asleep in one of the loungers that have found there way down there, with a chicken sitting on his chest looking like it's found the best roost ever. Unfortunately I've been banned from using them.

This became one of Sam Carter's favorites when she commanded Atlantis and I was happy to make it for someone who could still look at it as a treat rather than something to endure. It's named for the British novelist Arnold Bennett (1867-1931) who often visited the London’s Savoy Hotel and enjoyed an omelet filled with smoked haddock. The hotel chef created the dish for him and it's still on the Savoy’s menu today.

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Ingredients - make two servings

2 tbsp butter

2 tbsp flour

⅔ cup milk

1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

1 tbsp salt and pepper to taste

5 eggs (separate white and yolk from one egg)

6 oz (170g) cooked, smoked haddock, broken into large flakes

Method

Melt 1 tbsp of butter in a small saucepan over a low heat. Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the flour to make a roux. Return the pan to a low heat and stir in about half the milk. When the mixture has blended smoothly, stir in the rest of the milk and half a cup of the Parmesan. Stir this over the heat until the mixture has thickened. Season the mixture with salt and pepper and stir in the yolk from the separated egg. Leave this to cool.

Beat the white from the separated egg in a large bowl until it forms stiff peaks and set it aside.

In another bowl, beat the 4 whole eggs.

Heat the remaining tablespoon of butter in an omelet pan. When the butter is hot and frothy, though not browned, stir in the haddock and then pour in the beaten eggs. Stir the mixture, then cook for a minute over medium heat on top of the stove. The top surface should remain moist, with liquid egg in the center.

Stir the stiffly beaten egg white into the Parmesan sauce.

Remove the pan from the heat and spread the sauce mixture on top of the omelet. Then put the pan under the pre-heated grill. After about half a minute sprinkle the remaining tablespoon of Parmesan on top and grill for another minute or until the surface is spotted with brown. Slide the omelet from the pan to a warmed serving plate, but do not fold the omelet.

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Cherry and cinnamon conserve

On Heylar, an out of the way planet near the edge of the Pegasus galaxy, there are huge groves of trees that are covered in a snowstorm of pink, sweet-smelling blossoms in the spring. The Heylans celebrate the season with a week long blossom festival. There's singing and dancing, fulled by a champagne-like blossom wine, but they also spend the days doing chores. They clean their houses and barns, they mend fences and hedgerows, and tend to the graves of their ancestors. Then on the last day of the festival, before the largest of the feasts, they paint their town pink. It's not a garish, harsh pink, but a lovely, soft wash of color that slowly fades over the year.

In the fall the trees are heavy with juicy red almost-cherries and the people of Heylar celebrate their harvest with even more gusto than they do the blossoms that precede it. Having had the honor of attending the festival one year (thank you Mr Wolsey), I have to say that I would be celebrating too if I had access to all that luscious fruit. Every year Atlantis personnel barter and beg for a place on the trade missions to both the Heylan festivals, but especially the fall one.

Jennifer Keller, in her position as Chief Medical Officer, always insisted she was the representative of medical department at both events. Her argument that she had built a good relationship with the Heylans during her monthly clinics on the planet would have almost been convincing, if she hadn't returned from every trip with about twice her own body weight in fruit and fingers stained red with their juices.

The feasts at the two festivals were wonderful, not only for the splendid food on offer, but for the Heylans sheer joy and everyone loved attending them. They served roasted meat and vegetables, beautiful, subtly flavored rice studded with dried fruits and nuts, and of course cherries. Served with the meat in the fall festival is the first batch of the chutney they make from the cherries and local spices. In the spring they have the blossom champagne to wash it all down and in the fall, a thick, syrupy cherry flavored wine strong enough to make even Ronon giggly.

This conserve is spread on buttered, fresh bread for breakfast the day after the feast. I won't claim it cures a delicate head, but it certainly tastes wonderful. We brought some back with us to Atlantis and then began making our own with the almost-cherries Heylans traded with us for seed potatoes and help with their harvest.

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Ingredients

2lb (1kg) cherries, stoned

1 cinnamon stick

Zest and juice 2 lemons

1lb (500g) preserving sugar with added pectin

Instructions

Put a couple of saucers into the freezer.

Roughly chop about a third of the cherries. Put into a large pan with the cinnamon stick, broken in half, the lemon zest and juice and 5floz (150ml) water. Bring gently to the boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally, until cherries are softened.

Add the sugar, stir until dissolved, then increase the heat and boil hard for 4-5 minutes until the conserve is softly set. To test this, take a saucer from the freezer and spoon a little of the mixture onto it. Push your finger through the conserve; if it wrinkles on the surface it is ready. If not, reboil for a few minutes more, then test again. Spoon into small, sterilized warm jars, seal and label. Once open, keep in the fridge.

Cherries are fairly low in pectin (the natural sugar that makes conserves and jellies set) so it's essential to use preserving sugar with added pectin to help it along. This also means that you only boil the conserve for a short time, which preserves its vivid color and fresh flavor.

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Bengt-arn baked omelet

The Bengt-arn are a surprisingly open and friendly people considering they live there entire lives in a series of deep caves that run for miles under the mountains of their planet. The mountains, long dead volcanoes, rise steeply out of the clear, greenish sea that covers their world, creating a string of gray islands that stretch away in a long archipelago from the tiny island that the gate is on. The rocks are riddled with old lava tubes and now empty magma chambers, forming a relatively Wraith-proof underground city for the Bengt-arn to live in.

They only appear on the surface to bring their goods to the Yalla'at market that happens every few months near the gate. The Yalla'at are the Pegasus galaxy's fixers and organizers, making sure that trade and commerce continue despite the Wraith (and of course taking their cut in the process). Teyla introduced us to them and once in their good graces (something that cost us fourteen crates of organic peanut butter), we had access to all their markets.

SGA-1 had arrived early to their first market on the Bengt-arn's planet, and were wondering why there was so much excitement about such a poorly stocked set of stalls, when the first of the boats glided out of the early morning mist. The boats were floating shops, packed with all kinds of items for sale; crops from the tiny fields high on the mountain sides, meat and fish, worked metal and stone, and beautiful fabrics woven from the softest wool of the sheep-like creatures that they farmed.

Much to Ronon and Rodney's delight some of their boats were floating taverns, serving home cooked food washed down with an amazing ale fermented from lichen that grew in the deep caverns of their home. It was luck really that Rodney and Ronon were eating lunch (their second one of the day) on one of these boats when the tavern's oven developed a fault. Sheppard returned to find Rodney elbows deep in the complex steam generator with the owner, Mish, looking on with unabashed awe.

It was Mish who pleaded Atlantis' case to the Bengt-arn elders and secured us an invite to visit the underground city directly, something that almost never happened. He also taught us how to make some of the fantastic dishes the Bengt-arn made with their rather limited selection of produce. This is one of them and it soon became a regular on the menu in the mess, both for breakfast and for lunch, served with a chunk of crusty bread.

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Ingredients - serves 4

3½ fl oz (100ml) olive oil, plus extra to serve

1 red onion, finely chopped

1 tsp ground turmeric

1 tsp ground coriander

1 tsp paprika

10 tomatoes, peeled and diced*

1 handful chopped cilantro (coriander) leaves

7 eggs, beaten

salt and pepper

*To peel tomatoes, remove the stem with a sharp knife and then score the skin in a cross at the other end. Drop them into a pan of boiling water for 30 seconds and remove and put them briefly in cold water to cool them down. Once they're cool enough you an peel the skin off with your fingers.

Instructions

Pre-heat the oven to 350ºF/180ºC.

Heat a casserole dish (one that has a lid) on the stove, add the olive oil and onion, cooking gently for about 5 minutes, stirring often. Once the onion is soft, add the spices and cook for another 2 minutes to release the flavors.

Add the tomatoes and the cilantro then reduce the heat and simmer for abut 10-15 minutes, stirring frequently so it doesn't stick.

Remove from the heat an pour over the beaten eggs, cover with the lid and put it in the hot oven for 10-15 minutes or until the omelet is lightly puffed up and the eggs are set. Season well, drizzle with a little olive oil and then serve it with some good, crusty bread.

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Green eggs and ham pie

There have been some people who have arrived in the Pegasus galaxy with very fixed ideas about how things are and what should be done. These people, thankfully very few on the original expedition, have to quickly learn this isn't true or they find their tour of duty on Atlantis is surprisingly short. Usually this means being sent right back to Earth on the next Daedalus run, but sometimes, sadly, they discover their mistakes in a rather more deadly fashion.

One of the former of these types was an anthropologist who arrived on the same Daedalus run as the copy of Dr Seuss's Green Eggs and Ham that John Sheppard bought for Teyla's son, Torren. The anthropologist, who I will not name, had already annoyed the heck out of most of her colleges before she found Sheppard reading the book to Torren in the mess.

Without any introductions, or thoughts of how it might affect Torren, she seated herself at the table and launched into a 'discussion' about how polluting the primitive societies of the Pegasus galaxy with Earth culture was morally wrong. Both John and Torren stared at her in stunned silence for a few minutes (as did everyone else in the mess), neither sure what to make of her. Eventually Torren did what I'm sure Sheppard wanted to do and burst into tears. She didn't even seem to want to stop then but Sheppard had already scooped up the crying child, and the book, and left.

I think most of us in the mess thought that the anthropologist was going to find out just how 'primitive' the societies of the Pegasus galaxy could be when she turned up for off-world training. Surprisingly it was McKay who set her straight, right there in the mess that evening. The anthropology department was filled with glee, not only because their rather stupid college had been given her marching orders, but because the dressing down she had received demonstrated that Rodney had been paying attention to everything they had told him over the years, despite appearances to the contrary. Personally I think that anyone who hadn't worked out that the people of the Pegasus galaxy were amazingly adept at integrating new ideas but keeping their own cultures, needed sending back with the anthropologist (who I'm told to this day doesn't understand what she did wrong).

Torren, needless to say, loved all of Dr Seuss' books, especially if his Uncle John read them to him, and used to recite them as he toddled round Atlantis. He's a lovely child, a credit to his parents, and more than a little bit of a clown. He knows just what to do to make adults smile, even his grumpy Uncle Odd-knee, and he usually gets his own way. Whenever he comes over from the mainland he asks for these little pies (as do many of the Marines) and I'm happy to oblige, even without the jokes he memorizes to tell me.

They couldn't be easier. There's only 4 steps to making them (if you buy ready rolled pastry) and one of those steps is turning the oven on!

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Ingredients - makes 6

1 sheet of shortcrust pastry, store bought is fine

4 eggs

A big handful of spinach leaves, finely chopped (or use frozen spinach, thawed)

1 cup (250ml) milk

½ cup chopped ham

¼ grated cheese, something sharp like cheddar

Instructions

Pre-heat the oven to 355ºF/180ºC.

Line 6 large muffin cups with the pastry by cutting circles either with a large ring cutter or using the top of a large glass.

Combine the eggs with the milk, chopped ham, cheese and spinach. Pour the mixture into the pastry cases and bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until set.

Part 4