Mardi Gras
30 recipes found
King Cake With Strawberry and Cream Cheese Filling
King cake, a sweetened, yeast-raised bread eaten throughout the many weeks of Carnival season, is rolled and twisted like a cinnamon roll. Traditional king cakes are flavored with cinnamon and sugar, but today the flavor combinations are seemingly endless; this version pairs strawberry jam and cream cheese. The cream cheese filling is flavored with lemon zest and a little sugar; a spoonful of flour adds structure. Dollops of strawberry jam contribute a concentrated fruity bite; if you want more fruit presence, opt for canned strawberry pie filling. The whole pastry is bathed in a lemony glaze before being topped with green, gold and purple sugar, a visual cue that identifies this wreath of baked dough as a king cake.
Pączki (Jam-Filled Doughnuts)
Biting into freshly prepared, pillowy soft pączki is among the joys of life well worth indulging in. Pączki (pronounced ponch-key) are Polish doughnuts typically filled with plum or wild rose jam and dusted with powdered sugar or drizzled with glaze, and sometimes topped with candied orange peel. In Poland, they are a traditional food eaten on Tłusty Czwartek (Fat Thursday) — the Thursday before Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent. Pączki are less sweet but richer than typical doughnuts. They are also a deeper brown in color with a light ring around the middle. It takes time, patience and a little practice to prepare pączki at home. If you have a stand mixer with a dough hook, it will do most of the dough work for you. It is important to watch the oil temperature when frying pączki to ensure they cook through on the inside without turning too dark on the outside. Traditionally, spirytus, a high-proof alcohol with a neutral taste, is used in the dough so the pączki don’t absorb too much oil while frying, but other higher-proof spirits like vodka also work well. Pączki are best shared and eaten right away.
Oysters Mosca
In this one-pan gratin, inspired by a favorite appetizer at Mosca’s, an Italian restaurant just outside of New Orleans, fresh oysters are covered in a garlicky butter sauce, topped with a mélange of breadcrumbs and freshly grated Parmesan and baked until tender yet juicy. It’s a hit with those who love oysters — and even those who aren’t fans of raw ones. The shellfish are full of flavor from the Creole seasoning that accents the sauce, with a hint of Italian influence from the herbs and Parmesan. At Mosca’s, they use plump Gulf oysters from nearby waters, a variety that’s especially good cooked and worth seeking out if you live near the Gulf Coast. Otherwise, any oysters work: Using preshucked oysters packed in their liquor at your local grocer or fishmonger makes preparing this dish a breeze. Best enjoyed warm from the oven, this appetizer is meant to be shared with a group.
Rainbow Cake
This Technicolor cake is a project, but one you can pull off with a little elbow grease and lots of butter (nine sticks, to be exact). Most rainbow cakes call for coloring the individual layers of cake batter, but here, the frosting is tinted, creating an impressive rainbow inside each slice. The batter uses egg whites for a light, fluffy, just-sweet-enough layer cake, while the leftover egg yolks in the frosting make it smooth and creamy. We’ve included instructions for making the ombré and piped versions of the cake below, but you’ll need to make an extra half-batch of frosting for the piped version. A standard mixer cannot accommodate more than one batch of frosting at a time, so you’ll need to make the half-batch separately, then combine them before coloring and frosting.
Dirty Rice
Dirty rice gets its color from caramelized sirloin and the roux — flour browned (but not burned) in oil. The New Orleans-based chef Isaac Toups offers a 15-minute roux shortcut in his book “Chasing the Gator,” but you may find your roux browns more quickly in the smoking hot oil. Be sure to stir, stir, stir once you add the flour. You cannot walk away from the pot while making this roux. Prep the “trinity” — bell peppers, onion and celery — in advance as you won't have time to do it while the roux cooks. When the roux turns the color of milk chocolate, toss in the chopped vegetables to stop the roux from cooking any further. Instead of adding rice and the serving components, you could do as Mr. Toups suggests and use the meat gravy as a base for a lasagna ragu. Just throw in some fresh tomatoes and cook it down “until it’s nice and tight” and make it your lasagna filling.
Mimosa
Like most mixed drinks, the Mimosa, that brunch staple, is better when the ingredients are of high quality. This doesn’t mean you should use that incredible bottle of Champagne you were given as a birthday present, but it does mean you should use a good, dry sparkling wine that tastes delicious without the addition of fruit juice. Cava, which may bring to mind Champagne more than prosecco does, is also substantially lower in price. As to the juice, squeeze it fresh — from whatever sorts of orange citrus you like best — and strain it.
Dutch Baby
This large, fluffy pancake is excellent for breakfast, brunch, lunch and dessert any time of year. And it comes together in about five blessed minutes. Just dump all of the ingredients into a blender, give it a good whirl, pour it into a heated skillet sizzling with butter, and pop it into the oven. Twenty-five minutes later? Bliss. It's wonderful simply with sugar, syrup or preserves, but you also can serve it with fresh berries and whipped cream, apple slices cooked in butter and sugar or banana slices lightly cooked then dusted with brown sugar.
Caramelized Apple King Cake
Though there are many versions of king cake — the pastry eaten from Twelfth Night through Mardi Gras — many New Orleanians trace their best memories back to their local bakery. Such is the case for the Creole chef and New Orleans native Dominick Lee. His recipe was inspired by childhood memories of king cakes with apple filling served in the city’s Gentilly neighborhood. Mr. Lee retains that filling in his cake and takes inspiration from global influences, adding a fragrant orange blossom cream-cheese frosting. True to tradition, a plastic baby is hidden within the cake. The person who finds and eats the slice with the baby is promised luck and prosperity, and — fair warning — is also responsible for providing the next cake.
King Cake
This Carnival cake is more like a brioche, with a bitingly sweet frosting and sugared pecans for crunch. Browse the baby shower section of a party supply store for the Mardi Gras king cake baby, where plastic babies are often sold by the dozen. A large dried bean works too. Tradition dictates that whoever finds the baby is king or queen of the party (and also has to bring the king cake to the next Carnival celebration).
East 62nd Street Lemon Cake
Maida Heatter’s famous lemon cake first appeared in The Times in a 1970s feature highlighting a few of her best-loved cake recipes. This one was actually found by her daughter, Toni Evins Marks, who lived on East 62nd Street at the time. Ms. Marks, who went on to illustrate a number of Ms. Heatter's cookbooks, sent it to her mother. She tinkered with it and renamed it. The cake, which is tender, moist and scented with lemon zest, is brushed with a simple glaze of lemon juice and sugar when it's still warm so it soaks into the cake. It's a timeless dessert that's perfect for practically any celebration. (Note: Some readers have mentioned in the notes below the recipe that "Maida Heatter's Book of Great Desserts" instructs you to bake this cake at 350 degrees. Our recipe, the one that Craig Claiborne ran in 1970, before Ms. Heatter's book was published, indicates 325. Either will work, but if you bake at 350, start checking for doneness just before the hour mark.)
Peanut Chicken Wings
Here's a lively twist on the traditional chicken wing. Just grill or broil the wings until they're cooked through, then toss with a simple sauce of coconut milk, peanut butter, soy sauce, fish sauce and lime juice. Return to the grill or oven until they're crisp. You might never go back to Buffalo.
Bananas Foster
The New York Times food editor Jane Nickerson first published this recipe in 1957 as part of an article on New Orleans-style Creole cooking. Adapted from Brennan’s restaurant, this recipe is meant to be a showstopper. But it’s deceptively easy. Be sure to have a lid at the ready to extinguish the flame in case things get out of hand. If you cannot find banana liqueur, just add a teaspoon more rum.
Crawfish Étouffée
This recipe for étouffée, which is the French word for “smothered,” comes from Karlos Knott of Bayou Teche Brewing in Arnaudville, La. This is “pretty close to a traditional Cajun crawfish étouffée,” said Mr. Knott. “If you substitute a green bell pepper for the chile and omit the dried thyme, you would be cooking one exactly like my grandmother used to make. Some people like to stir in the juice from half of a lemon into the pan just prior to serving.” Look for precooked Louisiana crawfish tails in 1-pound packages in your fishmonger’s freezer section. Though according to Mr. Knott, who gets his crawfish from the family pond behind his brewery, the best tasting version is made with leftovers from a crawfish boil — that way you have lots of leftover crawfish fat.
Beignets
The French might have been the first to deep-fry choux pastry, but it’s in New Orleans that beignets became a true mainstay in bakeries and cafes. This version is relatively easy to make at home: The yeast-leavened dough comes together quickly, is very forgiving to work with and fries up light and airy. The yeast must be fresh and active: Once stirred with warm water and sugar, let the mixture stand for 10 minutes. If the yeast is fresh, it will create a foamy, bubbly layer on top. (If this doesn’t happen, you’ll need to start over with new yeast.) You can cook the beignets in a Dutch oven or deep skillet, no deep-fryer necessary. To obtain the perfect puffs, fry the fritters in batches so they have plenty of room to cook evenly on all sides. Beignets are best eaten hot, buried in a blanket of powdered sugar.
French Quarter Chocolate Torte
Maida Heatter’s 86-Proof Chocolate Cake
Chocolate lovers will enjoy this festive, spirited cake from Maida Heatter, the cookbook author and pastry chef. Rich with chocolate, coffee and bourbon (a full half cup!), it makes for a decadent dessert that's perfect for any grown-up celebration or holiday party. (This batter is very liquid, so Ms. Heatter calls for dusting the pan with fine bread crumbs. This guards against sticking better than flour, and we promise you won't notice them in the finished cake. If you don't have bread crumbs, you can use flour; just be generous and meticulous.)
Chocolate Extremes (Double Chocolate Cookies)
These provocatively named cookies came to The Times in a 1999 Sunday Magazine article about Mrs. London's Bake Shop, a husband and wife owned bakery in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., known for their sweets. While the name suggests these cookies might veer into the too sweet and too rich category, they do not. Shiny and crackly on top while tender and deeply chocolaty in the center, they're like an ideal brownie in cookie form. They're kind of perfect. (One note: The recipe calls for bittersweet chocolate, but feel free to use semisweet or a combination of the two. Also, a sprinkle of flaky sea salt before baking would not be a bad idea.)
Carnival Sausage Rolls
Carnival — the origin of the word is the Latin for ''meat, farewell'' — traditionally ushers in the meatless Lenten period preceding Easter. In Italian the term is carnevale, and at Tommaso's, a restaurant in the Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn, these rolls were served at the beginning of each Carnevale banquet.
Eggs Sardou
Soft-Shell Crab Poor-Boy
Ask your fishmonger to clean the crabs for you, because though the process is a quick and easy one, it's not for the squeamish. There's not much cooking here. Sometimes crabs spatter, so it's best to fry them in oil that's not smoking hot.
Mini-Blini
Duck and Andouille Etouffée
Roux becomes the base for this étouffée, which uses plenty of smoky, chunky Cajun andouille and well-seasoned chopped duck meat. If you have a favorite Chinese barbecue restaurant, you can buy a duck there. Even grocery store rotisserie chicken will work.
Rice With Andouille And Kale
Rather than a mere afterthought -- a sad spoonful of white on a dinner plate -- rice is now rivaling pasta as both backbone and canvas for a main dish. This recipe riffs on a basic dish from Diana Kennedy, the doyenne of Mexican cooking, who has documented that country's technique for simmering one-pot meals from short-grain rice. Her Mexican rice recipe is endlessly amenable to different ingredients and moods.
Calas
The cala (pronounced cah-LAH) has roots in Ghana. In 18th century New Orleans, Creole women of color who had the day off from their domestic jobs sold them out of baskets, shouting, “Calas, belles, calas tout chauds!“ (Beautiful calas, very hot!) Save for a few Creole grandmothers, who made them for special events like First Communion and Mardi Gras, calas had almost faded away. Since Hurricane Katrina, they have reappeared in some New Orleans restaurants, as a dessert or in the form of savory fritters made with wild rice and smoked catfish or with duck confit.