As Stonewall Kitchen’s singular Southerner, I take the responsibility of kicking off the Mardi Gras season very seriously. I am beyond excited to welcome y’all to the jubilant, delicious merriment! Please imagine me greeting you at the door of a Mardi Gras jazz brunch wearing a feathered purple mask and leading you straight to the Bloody Mary bar while a trombone solo slides in through the window!
Mardi Gras is not just one parade or party - it’s a whole season of festivities! Starting January 6 (the real ‘twelfth day of Christmas’) and rolling all the way through Fat Tuesday (a day of debaucherous excess before 40 austere days of Catholic Lent), Mardi Gras is a wildly celebratory season and iconic NOLA tradition.
Accounts going back to the 1730s tell of revelers from all walks of New Orleans life parading in elaborate masks and costumes and stirring up mischief and shenanigans. Modern festivities include weeks of parades and balls staged throughout the city by various ‘krewes’ (or social clubs) all trying to out-do one another in size, creativity, and sheer jubilance. Parades feature jazz bands and elaborate floats with riders throwing trinkets, treats (like mini MoonPies!), and strings of vibrantly colored beads to costumed merrymakers lining the streets.
There are also countless house parties, jazz brunches, and late-night backyard revels. The city’s population more than doubles in the 5 days leading up to the wild Fat Tuesday climax, but that is only the tail-end of a long carnival season for the entire region including all of Louisiana into Texas as well as south Mississippi, lower Alabama, and the Florida panhandle!
All that celebration requires lots of food and drink, and New Orleans offers those with style to spare!! I hope this inspires you to put together your own Fat Tuesday feast all while letting the Stonewall Kitchen Family of Brands make it delicious and worry-free.
The spirit of Mardi Gras is one of ‘excess’, so it’s important to remember to add a little extra somethin-somethin to everything you make. We’re staging a bountiful Bloody Mary bar and going ALL OUT with the garnish! No boring bloodies allowed! These will be stacked high with pickles, cheeses, olives - even slices of sausage or Cajun Shrimp.
Choose any of our Bloody Mary Mixers - I personally enjoy the Cucumber Dill flavor for it’s fresh herbiness. As for garnish, load the Bloody Mary station with all your favorite pickled veggies and olives from Tillen Farms, and don’t forget the Dilly Beans (pickled green beans) - a NOLA staple!
For your bar you’ll need:
- Glasses and Ice
- Stonewall Kitchen Bloody Mary Mixer
- Bottles of Vodka and Gin (with a jigger or shot glass for measuring)
- Hot sauce (I like my bloodies spicy!)
- Toothpicks and cocktails skewers
- Small plates and cocktail napkins
- Festive decor! Masks, beads, candles, flowers - go nuts!
Suggested Garnish:
- Tillen Farms Bloody Mary Olives
- Dilly Beans
- Pickled Asparagus
- Pickled Cucumbers
- Cajun shrimp, quickly sauteed with a shake of Urban Accents’ Cajun Street Seasoning Blend
- Cubed cheeses
- Sliced andouille sausage
- Fresh veggies: Celery stalks, cherry tomatoes, sliced cucumber
Now for something more substantial: Muffuletta Sandwiches. Muffulettas are famous New Orleans fare said to have originated at Central Grocery - an old-fashioned grocery store founded in 1906 by a Sicilian immigrant (which explains a lot about this monster sandwich!). Muffulettas traditionally use a round loaf of Italian bread with sesame seeds on top, but those are hard to find outside the bayou. We made ours with focaccia bread which is an excellent substitute because it’s spongy and soaks up all the flavors (re: oils!) of the Tillen Farms Muffuletta Olive Salad - a perfectly salty, briney blend of chopped olives, pickled veggies, and piquant peppers.
To get true French Quarter flavor, you’ll want at least three different kinds of cured meats (choose from genoa salami, prosciutto, capicola, mortadella) and both sliced provolone and mozzarella cheeses. Layer the sandwich thickly with olive salad (on the top and bottom insides!) and stack the meats and cheeses in between. Tillen Farms Muffuletta Olive Salad is just the briney foil needed to balance all that fatty, salty interior.
You can eat this sandwich immediately, but I *highly recommend* leaving to sit in the fridge overnight to let the oils and flavors mingle and soak through the bread. It will go from great to OMGAWD! Not to mention it makes it easy to prep ahead for a party - just slice before serving and *BAM* you’re a regular Emeril Lagasse. Wrap leftover slices of muffuletta in wax paper to keep in your purse or pocket to whip out when you need fortification while galivanting about the French Quarter!
Next, we’re whipping up Cajun Crab Cakes. Crab cakes might seem like a difficult option for serving at a party (gotta be warm, gotta be crispy), but I’m here with a couple of caterer tricks to share. Firstly, the mixture can be made ahead and will hold in the fridge for a few hours before portioning and pan frying. Secondly, cook them all in batches, remove them to a wire rack on a baking sheet, and keep them warm in a 200° oven until time to serve. Put out just enough so that they get gobbled up and then refresh from the oven stash throughout the party.
These are so delicious and Urban Accents’ Cajun Street Seasoning brings a ton of complex flavor with *19* ingredients including sea salt, paprika, celery seed, garlic, black pepper, coriander, cumin, onion, red pepper, oregano, fenugreek, dill, mace, cardamom, and still more!! It is one of my personal favorites from the Urban Accents line. Serve these with our Smoky Barbecue Aioli - a great choice with it’s smoky heat.
And now for the grand finale: King Cake! King Cake is a large, oval-shaped, rolled cinnamon and/or almond pastry decorated with icing and colorful sugar. King Cakes are served in the region year-round with all kinds of seasonal fillings and decor, but Mardi Gras is the original King Cake holiday! Like so much of New Orleans culture and heritage, king cakes are a mishmash of many traditions from all over the world. This treat has clear origins in French pastry, Paganism, and Roman Catholicism as a celebration of Epiphany - the day when the wise men (aka: kings) are said to have found Jesus in a manger. There is a tradition of hiding a small token in the cake for someone to find - in the past it might have been a dried bean or small coin, but these days king cakes often come with a tiny plastic baby toy to be inserted into the cake before serving. If you find the baby, you’re the ‘king’ and must provide the King Cake at the next party! Just be sure to keep a close eye out for anything you put inside the cake – it can be a choking hazard or a toothache waiting to happen!
For our version, we kept it simple and adapted the shaping instructions for the Stonewall Kitchen Cinnamon Bun recipe. Just follow the recipe all the way through rolling the dough into a log before cutting - just don’t cut it! Curl the two ends around to meet and create an oval or oblong shape. Transfer the ring to a baking sheet and bake at 400° for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown. Allow to cool completely on a wire rack before spooning and spreading icing over the top. While the icing is still sticky, sprinkle with purple, green, and gold colored sugar or sprinkles. The colors are said to represent justice, power, and faith.
Thank you for joining me for one of my most favorite events of the year! I hope you learned a little something and now have an urge to put on some jazz music (here’s the perfect playlist!), whip up some flavors of New Orleans, and laissez les bon temps rouler!!
