Mardi Gras/Chinese New Year menu ideas?
Our Cajun Mardi Gras dinner last year was so successful that one of the guests basically told us to please do it again! Since most of the prospective guests are part of a set of friends with whom we regularly go out for dim sum, and since Mardi Gras and Chinese New Year are only days apart this year, we thought we'd celebrate both holidays at once this time.
We're planning on potstickers with a Cajun-leaning filling (pork with shredded mustard or turnip greens and Cajun seasoning), and a fried rice with bits of andouille and crawfish among the ingredients. Any other suggestions? I don't think we want all the dishes to be hybrid - suggestions for Cajun and Chinese dishes that would go together well would also be great.
BTW, if anyone knows of a Boston-area source for frozen crawfish tails please let me know!
By Allstonian
on Jan 26, 2007 07:56 AM
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I have found frozen crawfish tails at my local Walmart Superstore (Walmart + grocery store), can't vouch for every Walmart, every time.
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Where is your local Walmart Superstore? I don't know of any that qualify as "Boston-area" - the one we usually stop at is in NH, and I think we ran into one in central MA once. I'd love to know of a place (NOT necessarily a Walmart!) that I could get to easily by T.
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My local is probably the same one you've been to, in Amherst NH. A little far from a T stop...
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There is a Walmart in Lynn, Weymouth and Quincy. Unfortunately none are T-accessible but at least they're closer than NH.
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Yes, but there's a difference between a regular Walmart and the Superstores, which include full supermarkets. I'm not sure any of those locations is a Superstore.
BFP is from Texas and we have to go to NH every once in a while to stock up on Ranch Style beans (it's a brand as well as a seasoning style, and Walmart is the only place we've found it up here.)
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I think the butcher boy in N. Andover has crawfish tails (frozen). I spent 7 years in New Orleans (graduated from HS) and my family still does a big Mardi Gras party each year - here in New England (although we have to wait until after MG when my folks get back from Fla.). We order 40 lbs of great crawfish from NO and 2 king cakes and we all make cajun dishes. We wear the beads and masks, go all out. It's our way of keeping that memory alive.
A good Red/beans and rice is excellent or a good etouffe or gumbo - also make a few great muffelatta sandwiches like Central Grocers (french quarter).
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Beignets, since there is the chinese version that's similar. How about a King Cake and fill it with the chinese custard that's inside boh lo bao? You could do a sausage plate w/ spicy cajun sausages, like andouille, and chinese sausages so the hot and spicy could play off the slightly sweet. And, turnip cakes (because I've been into making these lately. They're time consuming but not difficult). Epicurious has a recipe I've been playing with.
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Crawfish egg rolls are widely available at fast-food spots/gas stations all over Acadiana, so they're a bona fide fusion/creolization food.
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Have you had Breaux Mart's Crawfish California Roll (or is it Louisiana Roll) made with brown sushi rice? OK, so it's not Chinese...
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Our apologies - we mistakenly split off the King Cake recipe posts from this thread - they are still on Home Cooking:
http://www.chowhound.com/topics/365843
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i would make red beans and rice... but my favorite is jambalaya with sausage and shrimp.... kind cake for sure... i would order it in advance from a nola bakery
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Well, we had our Chinese New Year/Mardi Gras dinner tonight. We ended up with appetizers of "Cajun" potstickers filled with a mixture of Jimmy Dean hot sausage, ground andouille, and red chard, some little cocktail sized boudin links, and chicken wings seasoned with Konriko Cajun seasoning, honey, soy sauce, and sesame oil.
Dinner was an enormous batch of Eight Treasure fried rice with Chinese barbecued pork, andouille sausage, chicken, crawfish, bell pepper, peas, carrots, and egg, accompanied by an etouffee with crawfish and chicken (we didn't get near enough crawfish to go around, and had hoped to stretch it with langostinos - BFP can't eat shrimp - but neither Shaw's nor Super 88 had any), and a pot of mustard greens.
But the piece de resistance was the king cake. As suggested by chowser above, I made a king cake dough, filled with a custard and topped with crumbly "pineapple" topping like Chinese bo lo bao, washed down with an egg wash and sprinkled with purple, gold, and green sugar. No photos of the other dishes, unfortunately, but here's the king cake. Since all of our guests LOVE the custard-filled bo lo bao, they were delighted, and it even tasted pretty good!
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Sounds like a fun fusion. Your cake looks great! Glad it worked out.
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