With the Super Bowl coming Sunday, we consulted a few experts on how to serve a spread that just might replace the commercials as the highlight of the evening.
Your "coaching" staff:
Ann Taylor Pittman, food editor at Cooking Light magazine, who once hosted a Super Bowl party with a mashed potato bar. "Standard mashed potatoes, smashed red-skin potatoes, and mashed sweet potatoes. I had three slow cookers and all kinds of toppings. People loved that."
John T. Guseman, author of the recently released Driveway Chef's Cookbook for the Football Season, a book of themed recipes for each team in the league. "It started when the Chargers were playing the Redskins," the San Diego native recalled. "I took red potatoes, seasoned and fried them, and called them redskins."
Chef Marshall Shafkowitz, a New York City native who is vice president of academic affairs at Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts, Chicago. Shafkowitz is attending a friend's Super Bowl party this year, but he still has to provide the food. "My occupational hazard," he said with a laugh.
Forgoing the bagged variety lends a bit of ingenuity to your soiree. Slice 36 white or yellow corn tortillas into sixths. Deep-fry 2 minutes. Drain and sprinkle with seasoned salt. Serve with guacamole. "One of the best and easiest things in the book," Guseman said. "Always a hit."
Slow-roasted brown sugar and dill-cured salmon: Rub one 3-pound salmon fillet with 1/2 cup brown sugar and 2 tablespoons coarse salt the morning of the game. Two hours before kickoff, bake at 175 degrees for 70 minutes. While the fish is baking, mix 1/2 cup mayonnaise and 2 tablespoons Dijon mustard. Slice the salmon into thin strips and serve with the mustard-mayo sauce, along with brown bread, capers, chopped red onion, and fresh dill sprigs, Pittman said.
Beef Daube Provençal is "a step up from chili, but just as easy to make," Pittman said. "You want something a little more upscale, but still hearty and satisfying."
Plus, you make the stew in a slow cooker. "You can set it up buffet style so people can serve themselves, and it won't suffer from being kept warm," she said. "It will taste just as good at kickoff as when you go back for more at halftime or even at the end of the game." (See accompanying recipe.)
