Para-Regal

One of the things I like about the r/52weeksofcooking challenge is that while you don’t get to pick the challenge of the week, you do have the freedom to riff on it in any way that you want. So while my reddit feed was filling up with posts featuring Chinese-inspired dishes and dragonfruit smoothies, I opted for something a leeeeetle different.

Back when I was a teenager, the writings of Anne McCaffrey were HUGELY influential on my young psyche. So, when I started to think about this week’s theme, it didn’t take me long to go from “Dragon” to “Pern”. Even though it’s been a few decades since I last read any Pern books, I did recall that there was quite a bit of food culture built into McCaffrey’s writing and I dimly recollected that there were even a handful of recipe books published by the author and/or fans. So, when I settled on creating the two most iconic Pernese dishes, Klah and Meat Rolls, I figured I didn’t have far to look for ideas.

Folks, I was wrong.

While there were indeed recipes out there for both, they… um… kind of sucked. So, I improvised. What I ended up with is undeniably delicious and I will definitely be making both of these foods again. The Meat Rolls in particular were a huge hit with my husband, who is always on the look out for something he can quickly eat with his hands, lol.

So, without further ado, here’s what I did!

• Klah: In the books it’s vaguely described as “a hot, stimulating drink made from tree bark and tasting faintly of cinnamon”. Cool. Cool cool cool. I can work with that. My hunch is that McCaffrey was aiming for something like chicory coffee, but since I didn’t have any chicory at hand, I decided to focus instead on the cinnamon aspect. Cinnamon and coffee are a great pairing, but a little lacking. I did a little digging on google and found some fandom discussion about trying to recreate the drink and someone suggested using Mexican hot chocolate. Bingo! I always keep a stash of Ibarra chocolate wafers in my cupboard. My recipe for klah is thus: ½ a Mexican hot chocolate wafer (Ibarra, NOT Abuelita which is an inferior Nestle knockoff) boiled in strong black coffee and lactose-free milk to taste. Voila! Simple, delicious, and definitely stimulating!

• Meat Rolls: Again, I think McCaffery was probably going for something more like a single serving Toad in the Hole or Pigs in a Blanket, but I didn’t have any cased sausage on hand. What I did have, however, was uncased sausage. My brain noodled along with the concept of a meat roll – it should be something you could hold in your hand, easily transportable, and able to eat on the go, reheated or cold. That sounded a lot like a hand pie or pasty to me. I used this recipe for the filling, substituting mild Italian sausage for the ground beef, and leaving out the onions and garlic to make it low-FODMAP. The filling was delicious on its own, and it was hard not to just eat it in a bowl (it would make a killer base for a shepherd’s pie) but I had to make this challenge work, so I restrained myself. The recipe called for puff pastry, but I only had some store bought low-FODMAP pie crust on hand, so I played around with some wrapping before settling on the most “roll” shaped look I could get. After brushing with an egg wash, I baked the meat rolls in the oven until done and then had to force myself to wait until they cooled before inhaling one, lol.
• A note about the low-FODMAP label on this week’s entry: I’m actually in the process of reintroducing onions right now so I thought this would be a good recipe to test the fructan waters with. So far so good! If you want to make it truly FODMAP-free, you should omit the onions entirely and substitute chopped green leek leaves instead, or use a Monash-approved substitution such as FreeFOD Fodmap Onion Replacer. Or just leave them out all together! To replace the garlic, I used my standard go-to, garlic infused olive oil. The store bought pie crust actually came up as “ok in single servings” on the Fig app, and I don’t typically have issues with most grains/flours so I figured I was safe because the ingredient list on the package was pretty basic. Obviously, you should be careful if you are reactive to wheat flour or gluten, but it’s not an issue for me.

All in all, this week’s challenge was a fun, nostalgic exercise for me. 10/10 will make again!