Dining With The Doctor: The Unauthorized Whovian Cookbook (11 page)

Go wash your hands and get your scarecrow coating ready. This part is pretty easy, too.

Soften your two cups of peanut butter in the microwave. You don’t want to cook it. The goal here is to temporarily turn it into a thick liquid. Stir and check it every 15-30 seconds. While your peanut butter is softening, crumble two cups of your shredded wheat or corn flakes. This will provide the straw texture for your scarecrow heads.

Now roll each popcorn ball in the peanut butter. Put the peanut buttery balls on a sheet of waxed paper. While the peanut butter is still plenty soft, arrange the crumbled cereal along the base so it looks like straw sticking out of stuffed shirt collar. You can also add a knot of butcher’s twine so it looks like you’ve tied a sack closed around the scarecrow heads. Use the full sized chocolate chips for eyes and the mini chocolate chips to make a mouth.

If you’d like, feel free to substitute Rice Krispie treats for the popcorn balls. I found them too sweet, even though the shapes worked better. Regardless of their interior, these deceptively cute sugar soldiers will break both your hearts.

Family of Blood(y Mary) (S3E10 - The Family of Blood)

1.5 shots/70 ml vodka
3 shots/135 ml tomato juice
1 tbsp/15 ml fresh lemon juice
1 tsp/5 ml dill pickle juice
½ tsp/2.5 g prepared horseradish
¼ tsp/1 g celery salt
¼ tsp/1 g fresh ground black pepper
healthy dash Worcestershire sauce (6-7 shakes)
3 drops hot sauce
pinch salt
celery stick
carrot
beef jerky

If you’ve just had 900 years of memories shockingly restored so you can save England from body stealing monsters, this is just the drink you need to take the edge off. In the spirit of authenticity, I could’ve offered you the same tea Martha offered Jenny, but somehow, adding a little mutton and a nice bit of gravy to the pot didn’t appeal to me - especially not after she offered to top it off with sardines and jam.

Instead, dump everything but the celery stick, carrot, and beef jerky in a tall glass. Give it a healthy stir, then top the glass off with ice. The Doctor would naturally need some celery in his Bloody Mary, but you can also add half a salad in there if you want. Carrots, cheese cubes on a stick, and beef jerky make this into a surprisingly healthy drinkable sandwich with a mellow kick.

If you’re not in the mood to make it yourself, threaten some bright, younger students at your boarding school until they mix one up for you. This fortifying drink will nourish your body while helping your mind cope with the most improbable madness your village has ever witnessed.

Weeping Angel Wings (S3E11 - Blink)

20 chicken wings
¾ cup/100 g flour
½ cup/114 g melted butter
½ cup/110 ml hot sauce of your choice
1 tsp/ 5 g salt
½ tsp/2.5 g cayenne pepper
4 cloves of garlic, minced

Let’s be honest. You’re not going to make hot wings from scratch. The time and hassle aren’t worth it. You’re going to pick up a bucket of them from KFC or have a box of them delivered from Pizza Hut. If you’re feeling really fancy, you might even pick up some wild flavored ones from your favorite sports bar.

I know this. You know this. But since this is a cookbook, we’re going to make a pact right now. Let’s pretend you wanted a moderately healthy version of Weeping Angel Wings instead of the usual deep fried buffalo wings. Out of respect for your guest's arteries, you went to the immense hassle and extra expense of making these yourself. Gosh, you’re amazing. I’m really impressed.

While we’re playing make believe, let's pretend you put your flour, cayenne pepper, and salt in a ginormous resealable plastic bag. Blow some extra air in the bag, seal it tight, and shake it madly until everything is well mixed.

Next, line a baking sheet with aluminum foil then coat that with some butter or oil. Remember, I said this was a moderately healthy version. If you don’t coat your aluminum foil, these things will stick and you'll be stuck eating metal.

Now set up a nice little assembly line. You have your chicken wings, a bowl of water, your bag of lightly seasoned flour, and your buttered cookie sheet. Dunk 2-3 of the wings in water, throw them in your plastic bag, seal it tight, and shake it about. Carefully pull out your wings and arrange them in a neat, single layer on your cookie sheet. This way, you get flour into every nook and crevice of the wing.

Once all your chicken is coated, put the baking sheet in your refrigerator for at least an hour. This is a good time to once more ask yourself why you’re not just buying some of these. Oh, right. You’re a culinary perfectionist who loves healthy cooking. Remember that when you're cleaning hot sauce out from under your fingernails.

After an hour (or up to 6 if you have a life), preheat your oven to 400F/150C.

While that’s warming up it’s time to mix your hot sauce, garlic, and melted butter. Give it a good, solid beating, the sort you probably feel you deserve for going to all this unnecessary hassle.

Once you’re satisfied, pull the baking sheet of wings back out of the fridge. Carefully dunk each one into the butter and hot sauce mix. Try to coat as much of it as possible, but don’t go nuts. You don’t want to lose the flour coating. That’s what gives it a fake crispiness. Put each wing back on the cookie sheet after its hot sauce bath.

Once all the wings are coated, bake them for 25 minutes. Flip each one over then put them back in the oven and bake them for another 25 minutes.

Serve them on a platter decorated with grey colored cake batter to resemble ground and chipped gravel. Or, being realistic, just wrap some blue paper around your KFC bucket. Either way, garnish your wings with a pair of mirrored sunglasses. After all, you don’t have to worry about blinking when the angel you’re stalking is staring at itself.

Professor Yana’s Gluten Neutrino Map Binder (S3E12 - Utopia)

1 package dark whole wheat fettuccine
¼ cup/60 ml olive oil
1 tbsp/30 g basil pesto
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 tsp/5 g salt
fried crickets, optional

Maybe I’m just a sucker for Derek Jacobi, but I found myself feeling incredibly sorry for The Master in this episode. He’s had a whole, long human life full of scientific achievements and philanthropy. One glance into his Gallifreyan watch, and suddenly none of that mattered anymore. One minute, he’s crazy brilliant. The next, he’s just crazy. C’mon, the guy is so smart he made a computer out of pasta.

So can you.

This recipe won’t turn you into a genocidal maniac unless you’re irrationally enraged by fiber. Find the darkest, densest whole wheat pasta in your grocery store. (If you hate fiber but love presentation, you can substitute some black squid ink fettuccine.)

 I mixed buckwheat and whole wheat to get some color contrast. Whatever you pick, boil it according to the package directions.

While the pasta boils, mix your olive oil, basil pesto, salt, and freshly minced garlic in a large bowl. Once you’ve cooked, drained, and rinsed the pasta, dump it into the olive oil mix and stir it about until the noodles are all well coated.

For presentation, set a roasting rack on its side and drape individual noodles over it to create the Gluten Neutrino Map Binder. I used a leftover cheese wedge to help keep my roasting rack from getting too wobbly. You're welcome to try aluminum foil or, if you aren't trying to keep the dish vegetarian, some kind of meat.

Pool the rest of the noodles in the bottom of the pan and drizzle any leftover olive oil sauce on top. Coating pasta in olive oil is one of the best ways to keep it moist and edible at room temperature, so don’t worry about your pasta drying out into mysterious and inedible stalks.

If you’re so inclined, honor the poor, fallen Chantho by serving this with a side of fried crickets. You probably can't use it to navigate a spaceship from the end of the universe, but put on a steampunky vest and enjoy a couple cocktails and you can certainly fake it.  

Cucumber Drums of Madness (S3E13 - The Sound of Drums)

2 long, straight cucumbers
1 8 oz/220 g package of cream cheese
2 tbsp/30 g mixed herbs of your choice

In honor of The Master’s return to madness, serve your guests these easy miniature drums. They’ll knock four times against the walls of your arteries, but the creamy flavor is worth it.

Cut the rounded ends off your cucumbers. Now, carefully peel some lines in the cucumbers so the exterior looks like a green drum with white strut supports. Cut it into neat, two inch slices then hollow out the middle of each one. I like to use a melon baller so I can leave a little bit of cucumber at the bottom to hold in the filling. Cut some spare slices of cucumber for the top of the drums.

Mix ¾ of your cream cheese with your herbs. If that’s too much hassle, just pick up your favorite white spreadable cheese from the grocery store (Boursin, for example, is easy to use and comes in a lot of good flavors.)

Fill your drum most of the way, then cap it off with some plain cream cheese so the top stays nice and white. Use a butter knife to spread the nice white cheese as flat as possible. Top it with a round slice of cucumber. For an added touch, arrange two toothpicks on top as drum sticks.

Cantaloupe Toclafane (S3E14 - The Last of the Time Lords)

2 cantaloupes
1 pear
blueberries
assorted blue, red, and clear wires or drinking straws
aluminum foil

In the spirit of authenticity, I should’ve given you a recipe for the cold, mashed swede The Master feeds Jack Harkness, or at least the fish and chips he asks for instead. However, I really didn’t want to waste hours in my kitchen experimenting with cold, mashed swede recipes that I knew no one would make. Instead, you’re getting another sculpture project.

Now, if you happen to have a classic brass birdcage and a large doll dressed in a suit, you have a good 900 year old shriveled Doctor decoration. Pop off the head and substitute a small cantaloupe instead. You can pose the doll inside the birdcage so it looks like it’s gripping the wrinkly cantaloupe head in agony.

Most of us don’t have old fashioned bird cages and creepy dolls lying about the house, though, so you can substitute this incredibly edible Toclafane head sculpture.

Cut one cantaloupe in half and scoop out all the guts. This one will be the shell of your Toclafane sphere.

Cut the second cantaloupe in half. Scoop out the guts then carefully peel off the skin. You should have some nice orange flesh.

Use two wide wedges to make the cheeks. Use your aluminum foil to make a tapered triangular breathing mask between them. Now cut two smaller wedges to make the cheekbones. You’ll position those on top of the cheeks.