Dr. Susanna Hoffman’s Super Bowl recipes

31 Jan Dr. Susanna Hoffman’s Super Bowl recipes

the background

The Showtime hit, "The United States of Tara," is about one woman with a multiple personality pile-up. In Tara's case, the condition is pathological. In Dr. Susanna Hoffman's case, it is merely circumstantial: her interests are as wide ranging as her achievements and talents.

Lucky for us, Susanna's gift for cooking – she has written five cookbooks – intersects with her passion for, no kidding, football.

The story is that growing up her older sister was all pink and lace and girly girl, and so she became the rampaging tomboy: "I knew all the baseball stars and football signals."

Back then one of Susanna's favorite teams was the Pittsburgh Steelers. Today Lyn Swan is a black Republican politician, but in the mid-1970s he studied ballet to improve his game. "He was gorgeous and could leap and fly on the field."

She also remembers Lyle Alzado from the good old days."He was a Sephardic Jew from Mancos." And she thought the team's quarterback Terry Bradshaw was super cool.

"The Steelers are definitely my team."

All three of Susanna's recipes for Super Bowl Sunday are odds on favorites.

Welsh Rarebit

No lively sports party is complete without some cheese dish, but rather than the “getting a little too ordinary” nachos, why not have a mustardy, beer tinged Welsh rarebit?. Amazingly, the dish can be speedily prepared in the microwave. The classic combination of farmhouse products – semisoft cheese, butter, eggs, beer, mustard, melted together over wheaty bread flows to golden perfection in the magic box. Traditional Welsh rarebit recipes often also call for Worchestershire sauce, today’s legacy of the fish sauce so beloved in ancient Rome. Ali Bab, however, in his renowned work, Gastronomie Pratique, described Worchestershire and other bottled sauces as “violent” because they mask all other flavors, and following him, here it is omitted. Such sauces also have a lot of best to avoid additives. Still, if you like your rarebit with the bit of fish fillip, the trick is to add a dab of anchovy paste.    
(Serves 8)

2 tablespoons butter
1 cup beer
1 tablespoon dry mustard, preferable Coleman’s
½ teaspoon cayenne
5 cups (1 pound) coarsely grated sharp yellow Cheddar cheese
1 eggs lightly beaten
8 slices good wheat toast

    1.  Place the butter, beer, mustard, and cayenne in a large bowl glass or ceramic bowl  microwave, uncovered, on high for 3 minutes 30 seconds, or until the cheese melts.
    2. Add the eggs and whisk until the cheese is smooth. Microwave, uncovered, on high for 1 minute more, or until the mixture bubbles. Remove and whisk to smooth.
    3. Quarter the toasts and place them on a platter. Spoon the sauce over and serve right away.  

Pork Gyros with Yogurt Salsa and Red Onion

Afternoon sports parties, whether to watch the Super Bowl, the Kentucy Derby, or X-Games are almost as much about the food as the event. For them, though, other cacophonic with boisterous guys, a spread of hardy food is the call, not delicate petit fours. All too often over cooked and dry  hot dogs are served, but there are some great, tasty alternative.  For one, the ever popular, gyro, quickly and easily made at home.  The meat spinning around on the gyro grills is a loaf of specially herbed ground lamb. In recent years, however, tender, juicy pork has often replaced the lamb and for it, no upright grill is needed.  All one needs is a pork tenderloin and a frying pan. Making them as well a healthy treat, rather than the traditional garlic and yogurt sauce, the topping for these pork gyros is perky tomato-and- caper-studded yogurt splash, something like an extraordinary, brightly pink, tart, version of Thousand Island dressing. Red onion is a classic gyro topping, and with it instead of lettuce, the  nip of arugula adds green bite.

Makes 8
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup dry red wine
3 garlic cloves, coarse chopped
½ tablespoon fresh oregano leaves
1 bay leaf crumbled
½ teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon coarse ground black pepper
2 pounds pork tenderloin
Extra virgin olive oil

For the Sauce
Makes 1 3/4 cup
1 ½ cups plain yogurt *
2 to 3 garlic cloves
2 tablespoons fresh tomato, chopped
2 tablespoons caper, preferable wild and salt brined, rinsed and chopped
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 tablespoon fresh dill leaves, chopped
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon coarse ground black pepper
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar

1 large red onion, quartered and thin sliced
24 fresh arugula leaves
6 pita breads 
12 pieces butcher or wax paper, cut in rectangles a little larger half a pita, about 7 inches by 5 inches, optional
More arugula leaves for garnish, optional

    1. Mix together the olive oil, wine, garlic, oregano, bay leaf, salt, and pepper in a dish long enough to hold the pork tenderloins.  Place the pork in the marinade, turn to cover, and set aside for several hours, turning occasionally, or refrigerate up to overnight.
    2. Place all the ingredients for the sauce together in a bowl and stir until thoroughly blended and light pink in color. Set aside.     
    3. When ready to prepare, place the pork in a lightly oiled skillet or on a grill over medium heat, and cook, turning occasionally, until browned evenly on all sides, done through, and no longer pink, about 45 to 50 minutes. 
    4. Remove the pork and let sit 10 minutes for the juices to collect, then slice the pork into rounds about 1/3 inch thick.
    5. Place the pitas one or two at a time in second lightly oiled skilled. Heat until soft and golden on both sides, about 1 to 2 minutes a side. Continue until all the pitas are soft. Place each half on a piece of butcher paper, if using, so that top 1  inch of pita extends above the paper.  In the center of each half pita, place 4 to 5 slices of pork. Spoon 2 or 3 tablespoons of the sauce over the pork. Arrange several slivers of red onion, then 2 arugula
leaves on top.  Fold the pita, along with the paper, if using, one side over the other around the filling to form a cone,  narrow at the bottom and wider at the top.  If using the paper, tuck it in at the bottom. Arrange the gyros on a platter and serve. Decorate with more arugula leaves, if using.

Notes:
     In Telluride’s grocery stores, you can now purchase  creamy and dense imported Greek yogurt.  Other than the Greek, it’s best to use thick, whole milk yogurt for the sauce..
       Venders of gyros internationally always wrap them in paper to make holding them tidier, but it isn’t necessary. If using paper, the pita and filling will extent above the paper for the first bite. 

Cream Cheese and Grape Leaf Dip

Another must for a sports gathering in some sort of dip for chips.  Inevitable the chips and dip become a sort of focal point with people standing round chatting about players, scores, or catching up with one another’s lives. Between sentences, hands dive for a chip, dive again for the chip, and scoop on is devoured with gusto.  Finding a dip that’s zesty, yet not the same- old, same- old has become like searching for the ball under the stack of receivers, but here’s one that takes so few ingredients, is so speedy to make, and yet gets scraped up down to the bottom of the bowl, it’s a host’s dream.  The key is an unusual ingredient found near the olives and pickles in every store–grape leaves. Pretty much everyone has had grape leaves wrapped around a rice stuffing and liked the tart, almost citrus taste, but few think to use the leave in other ways. Yet they add a scrumptious nip when wrapped around a grilled fish, an interesting garnish over chilled shrimp or in a salad, and an enticing sharpness to a cream cheese dip.         
 
Makes 1 1/4 cup

6-7 grape leaves, about 1/4 cup, rinsed
1 cup cream cheese
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
Thick potato chips, tortilla chips, pita chips, or crackers

1. Place the cream cheese, grape leaves, and lemon juice in a food processor and puree until the grape leaves are well chopped and the mixture is well blended and smooth. 
2. Place the mixture in a bowl in the middle of a large plate, surround with the chips and serve.