Laissez le Bon Temps Rouler

It's Mardi Gras, and this is the second King Cake I've made in two days. One was for the Sunday Super Supper Squad, celebrating the season and the Oscars. This one went to work with me this morning.

I used a box mix from Mam Papaul's. The kit comes complete with colored sugars and a plastic baby to put under the baked cake (I do not have a ceramic baby to bake in the cake; I hear some people use dried beans.) It is often carried by Cost Plus World Market, though perhaps it is not in stock at the moment. I try to buy mine early.

Saveur has a recipe for a King Cake which looks fairly simple to make. Both are raised brioche doughs. Unlike the cake above, which has a praline filling augmented by pecans, the Saveur cake has a cream cheese filling. You can find it here.

I've never been to New Orleans for Mardi Gras. I was there once for Halloween, and that cured me of the notion to go to New Orleans for the bigger party. I'm not big on crowds, especially drunk crowds. Tonight, we will eat from Sunday's leftovers of shrimp jambalaya, vegetarian gumbo, red beans and rice, and courtbouillon. There's a part of me that would like to make a Hurricane, but it's a school night and I can't over-sleep in the morning.

Mardi Gras

When I was much younger, I thought a trip to New Orleans to celebrate Mardi Gras would be wonderful. Then I became uncomfortable in large crowds. Finally, I spent a Halloween in New Orleans and discovered that drunk crowds are the worst and Mardi Gras would involve even larger drunken crowds.

So, when I remember, I treat the Sunday Super Supper Squad to a little taste of Mardi Gras without the drunks or the masks. This used to be a dinner that Gillian Horvath did, but she's up in Canada making television programs these days. Generally, I'll do jambalaya or gumbo along with red beans and rice. I do buy beads and I make a King Cake. This one comes out of a box, but making it from scratch isn't very difficult. The dough is similar to brioche--an enriched, egg and yeast dough. The hard part is finding the finishing sugars and the prize baby when they aren't part of a package. Cost Plus World Market usually has King Cake mix, along with Cafe du Monde chickory coffee and beignet mix if you don't wait until the last minute to stock up.

During the trip to New Orleans that included Halloween, we were part of a group that ate at K-Paul's and some of the other notable restaurants in the city during our stay. We had a legendary supper at Tujagues, a story that includes George R.R. Martin, Melinda Snodgrass, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Walter Jon Williams, Roger Zelazny, and Gardner Dozois' knob (ask a science fiction writer or a New Orleans waiter some day.) And every night, we would close out the evening by going to the Cafe du Monde for coffee, beignets and great conversation before the shuttle took us back to the dreadful hotel housing our convention. 

The thing about New Orleans is that the wonderful food gets really heavy after about two days. We were there for eight days. We could not wait to get back to L.A. where we could get a real salad.

Mardi Gras

March is turning out to be a good time to try different things in the kitchen.  This past Sunday, I decided to do a New Orleans themed dinner to celebrate Mardi Gras.  The menu for the Sunday Super Supper Squad was Shrimp and Crayfish Etouffee, Jambalaya, home baked bread, and a King Cake.

I looked for a recipe to make a King Cake from scratch.  I've got several of them now, but I realized the problem I had the last time I tried to make one from scratch was coming up with the correctly colored sugars for decorating.  So I decided to go with Mam Papaul's box mix, which includes all the necessary ingredients and decorations.

Unfortunately, in my haste to get the dough made, I threw in the wrong packet.  It looked brownish, so I thought it was the yeast.  Wrong.  It was the praline mix for the filling.  That dough is still sitting in the refrigerator. 

Len was out, so I called him and asked him to pick up another box mix.  I had seen it on Friday at the World Imports.  They were out.  Instead of calling to tell me, he headed all over the San Fernando Valley until he found one where the King Cake mix was in stock.  It threw my timing off, because I had the main courses to make, but I did manage to pull it off.  I'm glad our friends were happy to wait until I had finished decorating it.  Tonight, I'll make beignets to remind us of the Cafe Du Monde.

While I don't really have any desire to visit New Orleans for Mardi Gras (Halloween there was enough for me), I do enjoy the food in limited quantities.  The eight days we spent there in 1995 were about 5 days too long.  I needed fresh vegetables and no more fried food for a while. 

I was very pleased with my first attempt to make a dark roux for the etouffee,  but it sure is labor intensive to make.  I got the right color, but I think the final result was not quite as thick as traditionally done.  That's o.k.  I liked the effect on rice.

We've got a bit more leftover jambalaya for tonight.  It's even better that way.