Mardi Gras King Cake

"The first week of January in New Orleans starts the King cake season. King cakes first appeared after 1872, when the Rex Krewe selected the Mardi Gras colors [purple, green and gold]. The traditional King cake is a coffee cake, and is oblong and braided. It is iced with a simple icing and covered with purple, green and gold sugar."

"Each cake contains a hidden bean or small plastic baby, and custom tells that whoever finds it must either buy the next King cake or throw the next King cake party. One Mardi Gras organization uses the King cake tradition to choose the queen of its annual ball. Hundreds of King cake parties are thrown every year and hundreds of thousands of cakes are made, bought and eaten every year."

"A king cake [sometimes rendered as kingcake, kings' cake, king's cake, or three kings cake] is a type of cake associated with the festival of Epiphany in the Christmas season in a number of countries, and in other places with the pre-Lenten celebrations of Mardi Gras/Carnival."

"In the United States, Carnival is traditionally observed in the Southeastern region of the country, particularly in Mobile, Alabama, the towns and cities of the Mississippi Gulf Coast, southern Louisiana and New Orleans. In this region, the king cake is closely associated with Mardi Gras traditions and is served throughout the Carnival season, which lasts from Epiphany Eve to Fat Tuesday."

"The traditional colors of Mardi Gras are purple[for justice], green [for faith], and gold [for power]. These colors are said to have been chosen by Grand Duke Alexis Alexandrovitch Romanoff of Russia during a visit to New Orleans in 1872. This doctrine was reaffirmed in 1892, when the Rex Parade theme "Symbolism of Colors" gave the colors their meanings."

Some believe the significance of the cake's decorative colors are purple for royalty [hence the name king cake] gold for wealth [this in connection to king cake also being served during the Christmas holidays; symbolic of the 3 wise men bringing gifts to the baby Jesus], and green for good luck and monetary fortune.

Laissez Les Bons Temps Rouler!

From Foodista

King Cake Recipe

For The Cake: 1/4 cup of butter 1 teaspoon salt 16 ounces sour cream 2 packages dry yeast

2 eggs 6 cups to 6 1/2 of all purpose flour divided 1/2 cup sugar 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon cup butter, softened 1/2 cup brown sugar

For The Frosting: 3 cups of sifted powdered sugar 3 tablespoons butter 5 tablespoons milk 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract 2 drops of food coloring.

Colored Sugars: 1 1/2 cups sugar divided 2 drops of green, yellow, red and blue food coloring.

Combine 1/4 cup of butter, salt, and sour cream in saucepan. Heat until all has melted, stirring occasionally. Cool slightly.

Dissolve yeast and 1 teaspoon of sugar in warm water as according to directions on package. Let yeast stand for 10 minutes.

Add butter/ sour cream mixture, eggs, and 2 cups of flour in a large bowl. Beat at medium speed of an electric mixer for about 2 minutes or until smooth. Gradually stir in remaining 4 cups of flour to make a soft dough.

Turn dough out on a lightly floured surface and knead for about 10 minutes, until elastic. Place dough in a well greased bowl, turning to grease the top. Cover and let rise in a warm place (80-85 degrees) for one hour. Dough will double in bulk.

Combine 1/2 cup of sugar, 1/2 cup of brown sugar, melted butter, and cinnamon. Set aside.

Punch dough down and divide in half. Turn one portion of dough out onto a lightly floured surface and roll onto a 28x10 rectangle. Spread softened butter and cinnamon mixture on dough. Roll dough in jellyroll fashion, starting at one end and roll towards other end. Halfway down the roll, add filling of choice [cream cheese, chocolate, Bavarian cream, fruit filling, etc.]

Finish rolling to end and gently place dough roll seam side down on a lightly greased baking sheet. Bring ends of dough together to form an oval ring, moistening and pinching the edges together to seal.

Cover and let rise in a warm place 20 minutes.

Bake a 375 degrees for 15-20 minutes or until golden. Repeat procedure with remaining dough, butter, and cinnamon mixture.

Combine powdered sugar and butter. Add milk (at room temperature) to desired consistency for drizzling. Stir in vanilla. Divide frosting into three batches, tinting one green, one yellow, one combining red and blue for purple. Yields about 1 1/2 cups.

Place divided sugar in three jars or bowls. Place a drop of green in one container and mix well. Repeat for yellow and purple colored sugar.

Decorate each cake with batches of colored frosting and sprinkle with colored sugar.

In the recipe above, the time needed to allow the yeast to rise does not permit a quick prep or bake time. my time saving tweak for a king cake recipe is substitute a basic scratch cake recipe using flour, milk, whole eggs and egg whites, sugar, butter, baking powder, salt. A bundt pan makes a decorative shape. For the frosting dilute Karo syrup pour over the cake and then sprinkle colored sugar crystals.

Text Credits: Wikipedia || Wikipedia || Foodista.com || Image Credit: sookie's King Cake

Ossobuco alla Milanese ~ Cross-cut Braised Veal Shanks With Vegetables

"Ossobuco or osso buco is Italian for "bone with a hole" [osso: bone, buco: hole], a reference to the marrow hole at the center of the cross-cut veal shank. In the local Western Lombard Milanese dialect, it is oss bus."

"Ossobuco, when loosely translated from Italian, means hollowed bone; a reference to the large piece of marrow in the center of the veal shank bone. It's a Milanese specialty of veal shanks cooked in meat broth and flavored with white wine. Slowly braised, this relatively tough, yet flavorful cut of meat becomes meltingly tender, and the connective tissues and marrow dissolve into the sauce, making it rich and creamy."

"The shank is a relatively cheap cut of veal which is readily available in most good supermarkets and butcher shops. Look for meaty hind-shanks cut from the top of the thigh with a high proportion of meat to bone. Each piece should be about five inches across and one-inch to one-and-a-half inches thick."

"This dish probably had its origins in a Milanese farmhouse during the late nineteenth century and most likely did not originally include tomatoes, a New World vegetable. Ossobuco first became popular in the osterie of Milan, which were neighborhood restaurants of Italy's large cities. These catered to the neighborhood's local residents but rarely if ever to tourists and foreigners."

"Traditional ossobuco was prepared with cinnamon, allspice, bay leaf and gremolata and today is called ossobuco in bianco [ossobuco in white sauce]. The modern version has, by and large, replaced the older one. This new version includes tomatoes and mirepoix: carrot, celery and onion, flavored with herbs but no gremolata [although hybrid versions exist which include both tomato and gremolata]."

"Risotto alla milanese is traditionally served with ossobuco, but goes well with polenta or mashed potatoes. The following recipe is for the modern version."

From WikiCookbooks

Ossobuco Alla Milanese Recipe

4 slices veal hind shank, about 2.5 to 4 centimeters [1 to 1½ inches] thick 1 medium onion, chopped fine 3 ribs celery with leaves, chopped fine 1 medium carrot, chopped fine 2 cloves garlic, minced 3 tablespoons butter 4 tablespoons vegetable oil 240 millilitres [1 cup] dry white wine or white vermouth

about 480 millilitres [2 cups] meat broth 3 tablespoons tomato paste 6 anchovy fillets, mashed 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme 2 to 3 bay leaves 2 strips lemon peel kosher salt fresh ground pepper flour

Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C). If the butcher has not done so, tie the shanks around the middle with kitchen twine; this will keep them from falling apart during cooking.
Choose a heavy, covered roasting pan or Dutch oven which will just accommodate the veal shanks in one layer. Put the butter, two tablespoons of the oil, the onions, celery and carrots in the pan and sweat over medium heat until the vegetables have wilted--about eight minutes. Add the garlic and lemon peel and sweat until they're fragrant, about two minutes more. Remove from the heat.

Meanwhile, heat the remaining oil in a skillet until it is near the smoking point. Lightly flour the veal shanks and slip them into the oil. Richly brown the shanks on both of the cut sides, then place them in the roasting pan on top of the vegetables.
Place the wine in the skillet and boil until reduced by one-half, deglazing the bottom of the pan. Pour this over the veal shanks.

Heat the beef broth to a boil in the skillet, whisking in the tomato paste and anchovies. Add this to the veal shanks, along with the herbs, several grindings of pepper, and a large pinch of salt. The liquid should cover three quarters of the shanks. If not, add extra water. Bring the pot to a simmer, cover, and place in the oven. Cook for approximately two hours, turning and basting the shanks every half hour. If you notice that the cooking liquids have nearly evaporated, add hot water, about one half cup at a time. The veal is done when it is fork tender and falling from the bone.

Transfer the shanks to a platter, remove the strings, and cover to keep warm. If the sauce seems watery, as is probable, place the pan on the stove top over high heat and reduce the cooking liquid until the sauce has a thick, creamy consistency. Pour the sauce over the shanks and serve.


Text Credits: Wikipedia || WikiCookbooks
Image Credit: wikimedia.org

Hearts Of Palm Salad

Heart of palm, also called palm heart, palmito, or swamp cabbage, is a vegetable harvested from the inner core and growing bud of certain palm trees. It is costly because harvesting kills the tree. It is eaten raw, usually in salads, and has a mild, slightly sweet nutty flavor and a pleasant texture. In appearance it is off-white and usually sold as round stalks about an inch in diameter and 4-5 inches long, in jars or cans with salt water.

Heart of palm, also called palm heart, palmito, burglar's thigh, chonta, palm cabbage or swamp cabbage, is a vegetable harvested from the inner core and growing bud of certain palm trees notably the coconut [Cocos nucifera], Palmito Juçara [Euterpe edulis], Açaí palm [Euterpe oleracea], sabal [Sabal spp.] and pejibaye [Bactris gasipaes palms].

Harvesting of many non-cultivated or wild single-stemmed palms results in palm tree death [e.g. Geonoma edulis]. However, other palm species are clonal or multi-stemmed plants [e.g. Prestoea acuminata, Euterpe oleracea] and moderate harvesting will not kill the entire clonal palm. Heart of palm may be eaten on its own, and often it is eaten in a salad.

An alternative to wild heart of palm are palm varieties which have undergone a process of adaptation to become a domesticated farm species. The main variety that has been domesticated is the botanical species Bactris gasipaes, known in Ecuador as chontaduro, in Costa Rica as palmito, and in English as the peach palm. This variety is the most widely used for canning.

Peach palms are self-suckering and produce multiple stems, up to 40 on one plant, so harvesting several stems from a plant is not so expensive because the plant can live on. Another advantage it has over other palms is that it has been selectively bred to eliminate the vicious thorns of its wild cousins. Since harvesting is still a labor intensive task, palm hearts are regarded as a delicacy.

As of 2008, Costa Rica is the primary source of fresh palm hearts in the US. Peach palm is also cultivated in Hawaii, and now has limited distribution on the mainland, primarily to the restaurant trade. Florida's wild Sabal palmetto or cabbage palm was once a source of hearts of palm but is now protected by conservation law.

Brazil was the highest producer of uncultivated hearts of palm, but in the 1990s its quality went down - mostly because of unsustainable poaching for stems [called colete, Portuguese for "vest"] of the main producing species, Euterpe edulis - which is now considered as threatened with extinction in the wild. This left the market open for Ecuador to export its cultivated hearts of palm. Ecuador is now one of the main producers of hearts of palm. France is the largest importer of hearts of palm.

From Foodista.com

Hearts Of Palm Salad

For The Vinaigrette: 1/2 lime or lemon juiced 1 teaspoon whole-grain mustard 1 tablespoon white wine vinegar 1 teaspoon sugar 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil Salt to taste Freshly-ground black pepper to taste

For The Hearts Of Palm Salad: 1 can palm hearts - (14 to 15 oz) drained, and sliced crosswise 2 ripe mangoes peeled, sliced thin 2 ripe avocados (or 1 large) peeled, stoned, and thinly sliced 1/2 cucumber peeled, sliced thin 1/2 Scotch bonnet seeded, chopped fine (or other hot chile pepper) 1/2 lime or lemon to be squeezed on avocado to prevent discolouring

To make the dressing: Mix the first 4 ingredients and then drizzle olive oil in slowly while stirring constantly. Season with salt and pepper, to taste.

Assemble all the salad ingredients in a bowl and serve the dressing on the side.

Editor's Note: The photo illustration differs from the recipe in that the photo includes hard boiled egg, lettuce, tomato and beets and does not have avocado or peppers. my tweak of the recipe would be to eliminate the hard boiled egg and have mixed greens of frisee and radicchio and a vidalia onion.

Text Credit: Heart Of Palm || Heart Of Palm || foodista.com
Photo Credit: FromArgentinaWithLove.typepad.com