Whew, that was one fun Super Bowl party and a well deserved one after a marathon cooking session yesterday afternoon. And while I am not a Saints fan during the regular season, I certainly was rooting for them last night. But most of all, I was excited for the excuse to add some Cajun dishes to my cooking repertoire. So to cheer the Saints to victory, I decided to make Gumbo and a King Cake.
So the gumbo turned out the best of the two recipes. I adapted Bittman's Scallop Gumbo recipe from the New York Times to include local shrimp and spicy sausage. I had another frustrating Bittman experience because the roux (2 T. butter, 1/4 c. oil and 1/3 c. flour) never thickened. I cooked that sucker for a good 15 minutes before I started adding flour by the tablespoon. While it did achieve a nice peanut butter color, it never thickened up too much. But I went ahead with the recipe anyway, and then was frustrated again when I found the final gumbo to be TOO thick. Sigh.
But I got it all sorted out in the end and much to my delight, everyone loved it! Thanks everyone for raving about the gumbo and making me forget all my Bittman-induced anger.
Now for the dessert, I turned to John Besh whose Mardi Gras menu is featured on Epicurious right now. The man must know his stuff, being a James Beard winning NOLA chef, right? But I found this King Cake recipe to be a little disappointing. But before I throw Besh under the bus, I must admit that there is always room for user error.
The dough was off to a promising start- it was smooth and elastic, smelled wonderful and had 5 egg yolks in it. Good, right?
Thanks to A. for the use of her kitchen and for this beautiful braiding job!
I've read that you can make a cheater's King Cake by just braiding together canned cinnamon roll dough. And while I certainly would have felt like a cheat, I think that would have been better than this version. It was a little... dry. Dare I say overcooked? I dunno.
But whatever, I got to creep people out with this plastic baby, so it was all worth it.
Thanks, creepy plastic baby.
And I got to go buck wild with my purple, yellow, and green decorative sugars. Wahoo. Really, those were the things I was looking forward to the most while making this cake. So that it wasn't all that great was kind of incidental. But I really wanted it to be dynamite!
Enjoy your Mardi Gras celebration, I'm looking forward to the excuse to eat some shrimp, gravy, and grits!
So the gumbo turned out the best of the two recipes. I adapted Bittman's Scallop Gumbo recipe from the New York Times to include local shrimp and spicy sausage. I had another frustrating Bittman experience because the roux (2 T. butter, 1/4 c. oil and 1/3 c. flour) never thickened. I cooked that sucker for a good 15 minutes before I started adding flour by the tablespoon. While it did achieve a nice peanut butter color, it never thickened up too much. But I went ahead with the recipe anyway, and then was frustrated again when I found the final gumbo to be TOO thick. Sigh.
But I got it all sorted out in the end and much to my delight, everyone loved it! Thanks everyone for raving about the gumbo and making me forget all my Bittman-induced anger.
Now for the dessert, I turned to John Besh whose Mardi Gras menu is featured on Epicurious right now. The man must know his stuff, being a James Beard winning NOLA chef, right? But I found this King Cake recipe to be a little disappointing. But before I throw Besh under the bus, I must admit that there is always room for user error.
The dough was off to a promising start- it was smooth and elastic, smelled wonderful and had 5 egg yolks in it. Good, right?
Thanks to A. for the use of her kitchen and for this beautiful braiding job!
I've read that you can make a cheater's King Cake by just braiding together canned cinnamon roll dough. And while I certainly would have felt like a cheat, I think that would have been better than this version. It was a little... dry. Dare I say overcooked? I dunno.
But whatever, I got to creep people out with this plastic baby, so it was all worth it.
Thanks, creepy plastic baby.
And I got to go buck wild with my purple, yellow, and green decorative sugars. Wahoo. Really, those were the things I was looking forward to the most while making this cake. So that it wasn't all that great was kind of incidental. But I really wanted it to be dynamite!
Enjoy your Mardi Gras celebration, I'm looking forward to the excuse to eat some shrimp, gravy, and grits!