Needless to say that the facehugger is quite a difficult creature to get. This chronicler only could glimpse its presence at some concealed asian markets, but, dear reader, if you are lucky enough to find one (or, given the case, that one of those finds you), you must not avoid the chance to put it in the pan.
Contrary to most of earthly products, facehuggers improve when cooked after death and, considering that its lifecycle finishes after laying the egg, our recommendation is to cook it after spawn. The death of the creature unleashes a chemical process that breaks down the acid permeating its bloodstream; this will ease our task.
A slow, long stew that softens the tissues and mixes the flavours is likely the best technique for this product. We recommend the slow cooker to achieve this. Recipe follows:
Ingredients for 2 people
A facehugger
Gloves, acid-resistant clothes and a cheap razor (one that we don’t care to rust)
13 cups of water
2 bay leaves
2 shots of bourbon
2 onions
1 garlic clove
1 spoon of oil
1 big red pepper
2 potatoes
1 bottle of good red wine
1 bouquet garni
Cooking time
20 min. for cleaning the creature
15 min. first boil
20 min. base preparation
8 hours slow cooker (low heat), or 45 min. for pressure cooker instead.
Directions
First of all we must clean the critter, assuring before that it’s dead as a doornail, just to avoid surprises. One way to check this is bringing it close to some kind of heat source. A common lighter can serve for this purpose.
We’ll bleed it outside: grab the body in one hand, with the tail firmly held behind it, as shown in the diagram below. This way we expose the area of the base of the tail and its union with the abdomen:
The arrow marks the place where we must make a firm, decisive cut, always projecting forward, so that blood will drop on the floor: the acid, with no gastronomic value found soever, has lost momentum, but still can burn.
Once the bloodstream extinguishes, we can safely manipulate the facehugger. Get back in the kitchen and put it in a pot with the 13 cups of water, 1 onion, 2 bay leaves and 1 bourbon shot. Boil that at high heat for 10 minutes. Sip the other bourbon shot down your own guts. With these operations we manage to soften the tissues and get a complete cleaning. After boiling, eviscerate the creature using a spoon.
In a big pot sauté the other onion in mirepoix, with the garlic clove, medium heat. Once poached, add the red pepper in pieces and keep the fire some more minutes. Add the red wine and turn up the heat. Boil some minutes to evaporate alcohol. Bring all this primeval broth to the slow cooker. Add the potatoes, cracked as cachelos in order to thicken the broth. Add the facehugger and the bouquet garni. Cook for 8 hours on low heat (or 45 min. in a pressure cooker instead).
For a neat finish we recommend to work a little bit more with the soup, boiling and defoam it with a spoon: this will clean it, deepen its color, and add density to its flavour.
For presentation, place the facehugger in its own broth on the platter, tail around the body. This tail is delicious also accompanied by a romesco sauce
It is believed that the romans, fond of oysters and lampreys, knew also of this product that breeded at dedicated farms accompanied by slaves devoted to that purpose. Some great modern chefs, passionate for this xenomorphs, hug them to their stagiaires in order to get the eggs; this is quite a dangerous operation that may end in a orgy of blood and dismemberments. We cannot recommend it.
What we do recommend, if you have the misfortune to be embraced by one facehugger, is to cook it as soon as possible, so you can enjoy a last banquet with this sideral delicatessen, just before the long voyage.
UPPER IMAGE CREDIT: H.R. Giger: Work No. 379, Alien I, Facehugger (Version IV), 1978 (fragment)
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