Game Day

My personal opinion on street corn is this: Nine out of ten times, the corn tastes better off the cob. When you have a nice big bowl of perfectly balanced street corn, there is nothing getting in the way of shoveling it into your face.

That’s why these street corn nachos, inspired by Mexican elote—the famous grilled corn topped with a mayo mixture, spices, and cheese—are great. Every bite has tons of corn and the perfect ratio of crema, cheese, corn, chips, and cilantro. If you make this in the summer, you can cut the corn off fresh in-season cobs. The rest of the year, frozen works just as well.

Patatas bravas meets marinara sauce. The Marsala makes the potatoes sticky and sweet, but it can be swapped for anything similar you have at hand, such as stock or water.

Shrimp boulettes, or fried shrimp balls, might remind you of Thai fish cakes or Vietnamese shrimp on sugarcane. The shrimp is ground up and fried without any flour or cornmeal (shrimp is sticky enough to bind the vegetables together, so you don’t need to add any filler). Eat the boulettes as a snack with hot sauce, or put some on a roll with bitter greens, cocktail sauce, or spicy mayo to turn them into a sandwich. Either way, they are a great way to eat small fresh shrimp.

While working at Food & Wine magazine in my early twenties, some of the editors were raving about Hatch green chillies as we chatted, and, not wanting to seem like a total idiot, I nodded enthusiastically and then immediately went to search what these things were. They are, in fact, pretty awesome, and come from a town called Hatch in New Mexico, USA. You can add them to soups, stews, salsas or use as toppings for burgers or pizzas for a great depth of flavour. They range in heat level (and also offer a subtle sweetness to them), so buy whichever are better for your palate.

I was fortunate enough to have Matty participate in one of my Food Salons in New York. I was consistently impressed by the way he wove together serious topics and those that were not so serious. He talked about his family and how food was a unifying force early in his life. He talked about moving from a small town to Toronto and taking in the energy of the city. He talked about the stresses of a chef’s life. We also talked about sneakers, which we both collect, and which raise some of the same creative issues as food—how to innovate while also respecting tradition, for example. This was still in my mind when I asked him to join in on the potluck, which is why I’m sending him Run-D.M.C.’s “My Adidas,” one of the legendary songs about shoes, stress, energy, and unifying forces.

Any sausage roll is a good thing, but these are a very good thing indeed. Savory is a really old herb that was used in cooking centuries ago. We wanted to recreate a sausage roll that you might have unearthed in an ancient English recipe in some dusty old book somewhere. And we’ve used plenty of savory to bring that nice herby taste to the fore. These are great for picnics or packed lunches, eaten hot or cold.

We passed on the processed cheese for more flavorful cheddar in our Bacon-Ranch Cheese Balls. To add creaminess and help bind the ingredients, we turned to cream cheese. Incorporating mayonnaise provided additional sticking power for the coating. A few hours in the refrigerator ensured that the cheese balls set up perfectly.

In hindsight, stuffing a meatball with a tot seems like an obvious idea, but I couldn’t find any evidence of it being done before! After testing the merits of precooking the tots to add an extra dimension of brown flavor and crispness, my tasters unanimously agreed that the uncooked tots worked better. This is because browning the tots essentially seals them inside a crust, keeping them separate from the meat surrounding them. But when you wrap the thawed tots in meat, they really become one with the meatballs and the delicious pork flavor permeates the tots.

Why have a burger with some tots on the side when you can just build a burger with tots as the bun! These mini tot sliders are first and foremost insanely cute. Believe it or not, they are actually pretty easy to make, too. But most important—they are extremely delicious. If you serve your friends these sliders when they come over for the big game, they will lose their minds!