Fic: Recipes from Pegasus pt5

[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)

 

Dinner
 

Dinner is the meal that most people try to get to the mess for because it's a time to catch up with your friends and find out how their day was. It can be a noisy time, especially if we've had a good day, with people chatting to others on their own and neighboring tables. Of course the reverse is true and the mess can be a place where the full impact of the losses we suffer is felt the hardest. It wasn't until Carson came back from the dead (and I never thought I'd say that about a friend) that anyone sat in 'his' seat at dinner.

Most of the meals cooked and served at dinner time in the mess are fairly simple; grilled meat or fish, with rice or potatoes (or the local equivalent) and some veggies. There's usually a stew of some sort, maybe a pie, a pasta choice and of course something for the vegetarians (or those who just don't fancy the meat options). The recipes in this chapter are for the slightly more complicated dishes, something a little more creative than grilled steak. Not that there's anything wrong with a simple grilled steak, if you can get a good steak. We've yet to find any in the Pegasus galaxy.

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Cilantro Chicken

The first time I met Elizabeth she was staying with her friend Ambassador Simm, while she negotiated a treaty. They wanted a simple family dinner ('nothing fancy' as the Ambassador had said, to the roll of his wife's eyes) and I realized at the last minute the 'spring chicken' that had been delivered from the market that morning was in fact an elderly, cockerel. A tough old bird like that just doesn't make for a tender roast so I had to invent something fast. This is it.

It was a hit with the Ambassador's family but the real reason I included it here, and why it came to Atlantis with us, was Elizabeth's reaction. Jane Simm called me in when they were serving coffee to meet Elizabeth because she'd just come from an extended spell in London and Jane thought we should catch up. She left us to chat while she went off to put her son to bed and Elizabeth, with a completely straight face, said 'so, I loved the cock!' For about a horrified second I thought she was serious until I spotted the twinkle in her eye.

Not many people on Atlantis got to see this side of Elizabeth and it's a shame because she had a wicked sense of humor, it just got buried under the strain of being in a constant state of war. She could also be as puerile as the next person and we had many happy evenings laughing together over a couple of glasses of cocktails mixed from Radek's rot gut and whatever fruit was handy.

The first time I made this on Atlantis I dared Elizabeth to make the same comment she'd made to me to poor Sargent Riggs in the mess hall. Needless to say she didn't.

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Ingredients - Serves 4 to 6

1 (1.8kg/4lb) chicken (it doesn't have to be a cock!)

1 bunch of cilantro, about as much as fits in the circle you make with thumb and forefinger

4 cloves of garlic, chopped

5 scallions, chopped

2 14oz/400g cans peeled tomatoes

2 tbsp tomato paste

1 tsp A1 steak sauce

1 tsp balsamic vinegar

¼ tsp chipotle Tabasco sauce

pinch of salt

A few good twists of fresh ground black pepper

 

Instructions

Pre-heat the oven to 375°F/190°C.

Wash the cilantro and then chop off the most of the stalks from the bunch. Discard the stalks and very roughly chop the leafy section. You can add more of the stalks if you love a cilantro flavor.

In a large oven proof pot that has a lid add the canned tomatoes, squishing them up with your fingers, and then stir in the rest of the ingredients except the chicken. Push the chicken into the sauce, breast side down, spooning a little sauce over any bits sticking up out of the liquid. Put on the lid and pop into the oven.

Cook for 1 ½ hours, then remove from the oven and pierce the thickest part of the leg to check if the juices run clear. If they do, turn the chicken over in the sauce so it's leg's side down and the breast is sticking above the liquid, then return to the oven for another 10 minutes.

Once the skin is browned a little remove it from the oven and take the chicken out of the sauce. Let it rest for 10 minutes wrapped in foil. Taste the sauce and add more salt and pepper if needed. Once the chicken is rested, carve and serve with a little of the sauce spooned over it. It's good with crusty bread or pasta.

The next day whiz the remaining sauce up in a food processor, adding a little water if needed, to make a great soup. Add any left over pieces of chicken, shredded, and warm through but don't boil too much or it changes from a lovely red color to being a rusty brown. This still tastes good but looks less fun.

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Caribbean Stew

This is a great thick, soupy stew that can be eaten as is in its vegetarian glory or used to hide a multitude of sins. By that I mean of course that it is flavorsome enough to disguise some of the more dubious protein sources the SGC send to us. Most people assume, before they're stationed in another galaxy, that it's the native food they should be worried about. I blame some of the more lurid sci-fi shows for this, because it's not all monkey brains and green slime.

Actually it's the food that arrives on the Daedalus, other than the pre-packaged things like chips and cookies, that make everyone grimace. I try to order actual fresh meat and fish to be frozen for transportation but somehow all we ever get is processed, reformed chicken and gristly hamburger. I like to think that tales of the good food available in the mess on Atlantis make some supply clerk, stuck in a windowless room under Cheyenne Mountain, jealous. I suspect though it was just the usual military bureaucracy and penny pinching.

Colonel Stephen Caldwell, always very complimentary about the food if not the command structures on Atlantis, loves this stew. He's never been one for overly spicy food and usually declines the optional hot sauce most of the marines added to this and every other dish. Personally I'm with Colonel Caldwell on this and like the rather more subtle spice of this recipe, as you can really taste the lovely mix of coconut and peanut.

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Ingredients - Serves 4 to 6

8oz (230g) dried kidney beans, soaked overnight in cold water (or a large can)

1lb (450g) potatoes or sweet potatoes, peeled and diced into 1 inch pieces

1 red pepper, roughly chopped

1 green pepper, roughly chopped

4oz (110g) frozen sweetcorn

3 cloves garlic, peeled and roughly crushed

1 small fresh chili, cut in half and de-seeded

1 large onion, chopped

1 cup orange juice

2oz (55g) creamed coconut

1 heaped tbsp smooth peanut butter

1 pinch Spanish paprika

¼ tsp cayenne pepper

Handful fresh parsley, chopped

2 tbsp sunflower oil

Pinch of salt and black pepper

 

Instructions

Drain, rinse and cover the beans with fresh water in a large pan. Bring to the boil and allow to boil vigorously for ten minutes then simmer until soft. If you forget to soak them don't panic, they will cook but will take at least an hour, possibly longer.

While the beans cook, boil the potatoes in another pan until they are only just done.

Whiz the chili and garlic together in a blender using a little sunflower oil to loosen the mixture if necessary. If you have not got a blender, just finely chop the chili and garlic.

Fry the onion gently in the sunflower oil, in a large heavy bottomed pan. Add the chili and garlic paste to the onions and continue to cook over a moderate heat until soft. Add the peppers to the pan along with the paprika, cayenne pepper, salt and black pepper. Stir all together and allow to cook slowly on a low heat.

Meanwhile mix the coconut, peanut butter and orange juice together in the blender and then add to the pan. If you have no blender just add them to the pan separately, they will melt in eventually.

Once the sauce in the pan has got back to the simmer add the sweetcorn and leave to cook for 10-15 minutes. When the sweetcorn and other ingredients are cooked, add the cooked potatoes, beans and chopped parsley. Stir everything together, adding a little water if necessary. The result should be stew with quite a thick consistency and a hint of chili. If, upon mature consideration, you decide you want it hotter next time do not de-seed the chili, or use two.

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Bad Dog

Before you throw down the book in disgust this isn't dog, poorly behaved or otherwise. It's actually an Athosian feast dish called Ba'thodohr that Rodney loves so much that he still can't get the name right. Fortunately I think the Athosians take this as a sign of affection, just like all us who have found themselves answering to the wrong name or rank after years of knowing him.

The Athosian spring festival, for which this dish is cooked, is a popular event on the Atlantis calendar and to most people is right up there with Christmas, Thanksgiving, Eid-ul-Fitr and Passover. We might not all celebrate the religious part of the festival but we can all get behind a good meal and, if it's appropriate, a drink and a dance.

The festival is a great occasion, lots of good food, potent drink and, in the case of most people from Atlantis, bad dancing. It's surprising, really, that so many people who in their everyday lives are graceful and limber, become strangely clumsy when it comes to dancing. Even the ever calm Teyla has been brought almost to the point of cursing after having her feet trodden on by an oddly graceless colonel. Of course, certain scientists who heckle their friends from the sidelines and don't even try the complicated steps of the Athosian dances deserve all the unwanted attention from sticky fingered Athosian kids that they get.

The original dish, which Halling graciously showed me how to prepare, is made using a young dreem, an Athosian herd animal that looks a lot like a small, spotted cow. Only with a trunk! The boned meat is stuffed with herbs, berries and chunks of a young salty cheese made from dreem milk. It's then wrapped in shoo tree leaves and covered in clay to be baked in the fire. It's juicy and tender, and the cheese and sweet berries blend together to form a lovely sauce. It's not just Rodney who loves this dish.

Using lamb instead of dreem, and some common Earth herbs, its surprisingly easy to recreate this dish, even without the shoo tree leaves and clay. I've scaled the recipe down to feed a family rather than a tribe.

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Ingredients - Serves 6

2lb/1kg boned shoulder or leg of lamb

1 jar of red current jelly

1 block (8oz/250g) Feta cheese

4 cloves of garlic

1tbsp of fresh rosemary leaves

olive oil
 

Instructions

Pre-heat the oven to 350°F/180°C.

Unfold the lamb if it's rolled up and spread the red current jelly it on the inside surface in a thick layer. Sprinkle on the rosemary leaves and then crumble on the cheese. Leave at least some of the cheese in large chunks or they'll disappear completely during cooking.

Carefully roll up meat and tie with string into a tight bundle.

Chop each clove of garlic into quarters length ways. Using a small, sharp knife, cut slits in the surface of the tied meat and push the garlic into them.

Wrap the tied meat in a piece of lightly oiled aluminum foil, folding it tightly around the meat. Wrap another sheet of foil around the meat, alternating the direction of the sheets so that everything is sealed very tightly. Put the whole package in a deep tray in case of leaks and cook in the oven for 2 hours.

After cooking is complete either take the meat out of the oven and let it rest for 15 minutes, then unwrap at the table, being careful of the juices that will run out.

Or take loosen one end of the foil as soon as the cooking is finished, letting the juices drain into the tray. Lift out the meat, still wrapped in the foil,and leave it to rest. Use the juices to make a thickened gravy and pour over the meat once it has been carved.

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Moussortof

This is basically not-quite-moussaka, hence the name, although Dr Michaelides always shudders in horror when ever I say that. I think this comes mostly from the bastardization of one of his country's national dishes but at least some of it is from the short cuts I take in making it.

Vasos Michaelides is a great cook in his own right and often books one of the recreational kitchens we've set up to allow Atlantis' residents to cook for themselves. Even in the larger, better equipped, quarters that most of the permanent residents have now, there aren't really any cooking facilities in the rooms beyond microwaves and crock pots.

The recreational kitchens were Katie Brown's idea, at least the germ of the plan was. She had a date with a certain someone and wanted to cook something herself rather than just pick their dinner up from the mess. I lent her my little experimental kitchen (and the use of the stores) and went straight off to speak to Elizabeth. I figured Katie probably wasn't the first person to want to cook, she was just the first person who'd asked.

Atlantis now has ten kitchens of different sizes that are usually booked out weeks in advance, even if a large number of planned meals never happen due to one crisis or another. They're all equipped with a table and chairs and most people eat there, even those who book the cozy kitchen for two, because they can leave the clean up to my kitchen staff. Nothing kills passion like having to do the dishes first!

This recipe, especially in it's cheat form that I've given below (sorry Vasos), is a one that people do cook for themselves, even though they can get it in the mess. It's simple enough to make up that even the busiest physicist can manage to put it together when he finds time to make dinner for his team.

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Ingredients - serves 4

1lb (500g) ground/minced lamb, or you can use any other meat (or vegetarian mince)

About ¾ pt (375 ml) strongly flavored tomato pasta sauce, use homemade or a jar

1 lamp stock cube

1 tsp oregano

About 10 black olives, halved

About 10 button mushrooms, halved

1 eggplant (aubergine) or a jar of grilled eggplant slices in oil

About 4 or 5 roasted peppers (from a jar)

½ pint (250ml) cheese sauce, homemade or shop bought

A handful of grated cheese

1 tbsp olive oil

 

Instructions

Heat the oven to 375ºF/190ºC.

If you're using a fresh eggplant, slice it length ways and grill the slices on a lightly oiled griddle. If you're using slices from a jar drain them on kitchen towels to get most of the oil off.

Put the olive oil in a pan, add the ground lamb and fry until the meat is no longer pink. Add the stock cube, stir and then add the pasta sauce and the oregano. Stir in the olives and the mushrooms, then let the pan bubble away for 10 to 15 minutes. Add a little water if it gets too thick.

Once the sauce is done, put a layer of ½ of the sauce in the bottom of casserole dish. On top of that place a layer of eggplant slices and then a layer of roasted peppers. Open each of the peppers out and rip them into strips. Add another layer using the remaining sauce, followed by eggplant and pepper and then top with the cheese sauce.

Bake in the oven for about 15 minutes then sprinkle the top with the grated cheese. Bake for another 5 to 10 minutes. Serve with crusty bread and a green salad.

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Mediterranean Stew

This is a hugely popular dish in the mess, amongst the cooks as well as those eating it. It's easy to make, satisfying, healthy and veggie. It's also tasty enough that most people don't notice the lack of meat until you point it out to them. You can fiddle about with the vegetables to adapt to what's in season and what you can get your hands on, as long as you have some form of pulse, something cabbagey and, of course, the tomatoes and herbs. We've made this with some extraordinary native vegetables the teams brought back through the gate and the stew wasn't too much the worse for it.

Sargent Eugine Bates, our chief of security in that first tough year, loved this stew. I was surprised to find this marine's marine was a vegetarian, not because there's anything wrong with not eating meat, but because I've tasted the veggie MREs and I'd rather stick hot pins in my eyes than eat them. Still, the man had managed to endure until he got to Atlantis so I thought it was my duty to give him some really good food to reward him for all his years of privation.

When Gene visited us recently for the presentation of Atlantis expedition medals and honors, I made this for him. He begged for the recipe, which I happily gave him, to take home so he could cook it for himself and his new wife. Marriage, and work on Earth, suits him I'm glad to see.

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Ingredients - Serves 4 to 6

½ lb (250g) black eye peas

½ lb (250g) black olives, pitted

2 oz (50g) mushrooms, cut into pieces

1 small aubergine, chopped into bite size pieces

3 medium carrots, julienned or chopped into small sections

2 courgettes, sliced

4 sticks celery, sliced

½ spring cabbage, finely shredded

1 large onion, peeled and chopped

2 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed

4½ oz (125g) tomato pureé

2 tsp basil

2 tsp mint

1 tin (14.5oz/440g) chopped tomatoes

9 oz (250ml) tomato juice

9 oz (250ml) red grape juice (or red wine in which case miss out the vinegar)

3 tbsp red wine vinegar

2 tbsp olive oil

Salt and pepper
 

Instructions

Soak the peas overnight in cold water, rinse, cover with water in a pan and bring to the boil, leave to simmer until cooked. Black eyed peas are among the quickest to cook so there is no need to panic if you've not soaked them, just wash well and cook, they will be ready in under an hour.

About 20 minutes before the peas are cooked, gently sauté the onion and garlic in the olive oil in a large pan. If you're using dried herbs add them now and allow to cook for five minutes. If you are lucky enough to have fresh herbs add them to the onions after five minutes.

Add the celery, aubergine, carrots and courgette to the onions. Stir and leave to cook for a further five minutes, stirring occasionally to prevent burning.

Poor the tinned tomatoes in to the pan along with the tomato puree, fruit juice (or wine), vinegar and seasoning. Mix well together, cover and allow to cook on slowly until the peas are finished cooking in their separate pot.

When the peas are cooked drain them, rinse and add to the stew pan with the cabbage and olives, mixing everything together. If necessary thin the liquid with water and adjust the seasoning.

Allow to simmer for a further 20 to 30 minutes until all the flavors are blended. Serve with rice or a big chunk of bread.

Part 6