Marcus Samuelsson Is Here To Save Your Super Bowl Party - Exclusive Interview

With the Super Bowl just a few short days away, we're starting to get our version of the pre-game jitters (checking and double checking our party menus to make sure we have enough food and beer for all our friends, will be able to keep the cold things cold and the hot apps hot, and that we have prepped enough so we won't be stuck in the kitchen while everyone else is watching the game). When hosting seated dinners or even more casual get togethers, the pressure is off a bit as you have an idea of when your guests will be digging in. But Super Bowl parties are a whole different beast, involving day-long hangouts leading up to the big game. And while you know your friends will want to eat, you don't quite know exactly when. Luckily, chef Marcus Samuelsson was willing to give us some tips for making the day go smoothly, whether you end up celebrating another TD or drowning your sorrows in beer cheese.

We caught up with Samuelsson at OXO's Chefs in Residence preview party for the big game, at which its Chefs in Residence (Samuelsson, along with Dan Kluger and Bricia Lopez) did cooking demos of their go-to party foods. While chatting, Samuelsson shared some great party hosting tips, his absolute must-have kitchen items, how he deals with the chaos that comes from being a celeb chef, and more!

At Metropolis you put coconut on your raw oysters, what is that ingredient adding to the dish?

There's a fatness in the coconut that I love, and — obviously I worked a lot in the Caribbean — very often we serve oyster with coconut there, so I wanted to bring that back. And then having a lot of acid, whether it's vinegar or lemon, I just like [that coconut gives] the opposite of that.

Do you do flakes or fresh chunks?

Both. And what's different here that we actually do better in the Caribbean is the jelly of the coconut. Young coconut is harder to find here, so we can't get the same consistency. But that texture is amazing on oysters. It's very similar to an oyster, but it's a different bite.

Is that something you think that people should do at home? Experiment, get a raw coconut, chop some up, and put it on? Or do you think they should just come [to Metropolis]?

I mean, there's so many parts of a coconut that you can use. Obviously, the water with vinegar is amazing, and the jelly is incredible, and the flakes, maybe toast them a little bit. But it's not the easiest thing to cook with at home unless you're very ... maybe if you're from the Caribbean, so you really grew up with those flavors. Or, maybe Florida.

Could you buy the coconut flakes pre-toasted?

No, you have to toast them yourself.

What're your top can't-live-without kitchen tools? Like "I'm just leaving the nest, my parents' house. I need to set up my kitchen." 

The first thing you should do is go beg and get the cast iron from grandma or grandpa. Get it. It's yours.

My inheritance.

Exactly.

I'm taking out a loan early.

Gease that thing up and you're going to cook some great meals. What I love about that — I have a ton of tools from my grandma, mortar and pestle, stuff like that — is I'm thinking about her. She's not around anymore, but a piece of her is in the house and I can tell my kids about it. It's a really beautiful bridge to have. But I would definitely start with that. And you need two or three good knives. Like, yes, it's a bit expensive, but you need that.

What's the price range people should be looking for?

I would go mid-level and I would not ... It's all about how you take care of knives. So again, no dishwasher. Make sure that you put them in a way that they don't ... like when you pull out the drawer and the knives are in there, you're done.

What about the magnetic bar?

You live alone or with roommates or ...? I have kids, so I can't have [knives] up there. Understanding and buying knives based on that is key, because if you have them out and kids are there or if your roommate's like, "I'm just going to chunk it into the dishwasher." It's really understanding the living situation. I wouldn't invest too much. A knife is one of those things that ... $1,000 is not enough sometimes.

Like handmade knives from Germany or Japan.

Exactly. So, decent knives. And then, one of the things that I love about working with OXO is there's a craftsmanship, a respect to what's happening in the kitchen, not just fun colors. The handles are great, which means you're not going to slip even if something is wet. Working with brands you can trust. Like I was doing lemon zest today, I hold that handle and I know I'm good. If I slip, I'm going to cut myself. Brands that really thought out, what is the kitchen feel here? What are the different [needs]? The bowl I just had, it's flat [on the bottom] so it doesn't wobble around. One of the things I love is 100s of years of cooking really just evolved and tweaked a little bit. The craftsmanship is there and the user can trust it.

Are there specific knives you need?

I would go chef's knife, paring. Maybe a serrated, because serrated you can cross utilize.

Any other gear, or just knife, cast iron pan?

If you have that you're pretty good, but I love a fish spatula. Because when you flip something and it sticks in the pan, it's like "what am I going to do?" But if you have a good spatula, get under, and it's easy.

Your pretzels at Metropolis have gravlax on them. If we are doing game day soft pretzels, mustard, maybe a beer cheese, should we keep it simple or should we add gravlax? Should we try going a little bit above the norm?

Gravlax is actually pretty simple to do, it's one of those dishes where my Swedish side meets the New York Jewish side, which is really cool. Like smoked salmon, gravlax; Swedish people love it and New Yorkers love it. We can go back and forth about our herring, our gravlax, our smoked salmon, and I love that conversation. That's why we did a mix that both represents New York and my Swedish background.

Do you have any other ways people could upgrade their beer cheese, mustard, pretzel offering?

Well, that whole dish also plays well into pigs in blankets. Once you have mustard and beer, I feel like you're already halfway there. A good sausage that you wrap in puff pastry, maybe you make them yourself ...

What about wrapping them in pretzels?

Yes, wrap them in pretzels.

Do you think that would be worth the effort? Pretzels can be difficult to make.

Yeah, no, you're not making pretzels. I would take the pretzel flavors, the caraway seeds, put them on top. That's the vibes we go for.

You're thinking more like "crack the premade soft pretzel open, stuff the sausage in."

Yeah. We make pretzels here and it's not for everyone.

Your culinary repertoire, your history, spans quite a few disparate cuisines: Ethiopian, Swedish, and then also with Red Rooster up in Harlem, Southern food, soul food. How do you go about melding these in a harmonious way? Are there hurdles that you've come across or people who say, "No, that's not going to work."?

For me, it's really the blessings of working with talented, crafty, devoted people. Here at Metropolis, working with chef Sherry Cardoso, she's Brazilian but lived in New York for a long time, worked for Thomas Keller. Or, working with Fariyal [Abdullahi] at Hav & Mar. To have these incredible, devoted people, and then we sit for hours to talk about, "What's your backstory?"

Sherry is from Brazil and has French-American background and training. Once we know where we are coming from, then we can develop the foods. My journey, it really started in Switzerland and France, then I went to Japan. I will always have Japanese notes in my cooking, which is not something you can see by looking at me, but just bringing my experience to it. And I evolved working in the Caribbean, that gave me access to those tropical notes. Sherry has her own journey. Brazil is just as mixed as America.

I love ... for me it's like every 10 years there's either an experience or a change that forces me to evolve. That's so interesting with food, whether it was leaving Aquavit to come to Harlem, or where Hav & Mar and Metropolis are post-pandemic. For me, it's really the team. Now we're about to open in D.C. with chef Anthony [Jones] and his journey. If you're curious and want to collaborate with great people, food is an amazing space. It's so exciting.

If I want to serve seafood at a Super Bowl party, would you suggest something cooked or on ice? Do you think it's just a personal preference?

For a party, I would definitely, for safety, serve something that is cured or cooked. The cooking can be a ceviche, it can be a two minute quick dip, and then you cure it in the lime or lemon. But raw is tough, because you can't control if it's hot over there or ... so I would definitely cook it or cure it. The good thing when you cure something is you can do it the day before, then just slice, and you're good.

Yeah, everyone loves a shrimp cocktail, but you don't really want to be giving your party food poisoning.

No, you don't. But that's a great dish that you can pre-blanch, dump a ton of lime on it, and you're good.

You're keeping it booked and busy. You opened Metropolis, you're opening your new restaurant in D.C., you were just in Ethiopia. You obviously do so many different television shows, different programming and events. Do you find yourself energized by the hustle or do you need space to decompress between different things?

For me, it's really the joy of the talent that I'm with working with. It's my company. I don't have pressure from that. What we do, I want to be part of when we do it; otherwise, we really shouldn't do it. But working with Sherry, Fariyal, and Anthony, and also chef Odi [Gowa] in Ethiopia, it gives me so much joy and pleasure because our industry has changed. So, for me, pushing, working a lot with young women as executive chefs, it's something I take an enormous amount of pride in. I'm also learning a lot from them.

I'm super curious about food where it can take us and how we can evolve it. In order to do that, you have to work with new people. And the day I don't enjoy that, I should not be doing it.

How do you make perfect cheese fries?

I think ... honestly, it's [the question] when do you drop in the cheese and the layers of cheese, right? You can have some cheese in the coating.

How do you do that? Parm? What kind ... do you use a powder?

Yeah, you get it into the coating. Cheese powder is also tart, which adds sour notes to it. For me it's that [coating] and layering. You can have everything from cheese sauce to cheese powder to actually grated cheese. Those three together are going to give the best textures.

How do you coat your fries?

Right when the fries come out, you add the powder [and other seasonings], because then it will stick.

Would you cut down the amount of salt you sprinkle on because of that cheese?

It depends more what cheese you're using. Actually salt — for me — comes at the end because that's the mouthfeel. You don't have to have a lot of seasoning at that moment before. You can really add it just in the end.

To get that classic kind of textural ...

It's both texture and flavor, the salt gives both.

Do you have tips for making cheese sauce at home?

Cheese sauce is a super difficult thing to do at a party because if it gets cold it gets gluey.

Or you get that layer.

And that's never fun. I think if you can make something ... like let's say you start with a bechamel, mornay. It needs to cook through before you add the cheese. Because once you've added the cheese, there's not a lot of cooking you can do, because then it's going to get lumpy. When you make a cheese sauce, you have to be almost like a pastry chef. Things have to go in at a certain time and if you don't do that, it's just going to get gluey and it's not good.

So on the side maybe you put it in a crock pot or something to keep it warm, but we can't avoid that little, that layer?

I think the cheese sauce that works the best is actually if you do a cold sauce, like an aioli and you add cheese powder into that. Then you don't have to worry about it. At a restaurant, you can control it, but if you're going to do it at home ...

What's the cheese that you like to add?

Dry cheddar cheese powder would be perfect. Then that gives you salt. You can also top that with some heat and even tart — you can have lemon zest in there.

So more of a cheese dip than a sauce if you're going to serve it buffet-style. But if you're putting it in front of people, then you can do the sauce.

Yeah, cheese sauce is hard to do.

Do you have salad tips?

Salad is interesting because you can represent the season you're in in a beautiful way. But also, especially for home cooks, you have to think about building the salad. If you want fried chickpeas on top of it, for just a bit of crunch, if you want lemon zest, cheese, stuff like that. If you add it too soon, it's going to get soggy. Build that salad, right? 

Let's say you do buttermilk dressing, the last thing you do is dress that. Then put your toppings on, either on the side or when you plate. Where people fail is they dump everything in before their friends are sitting down and it doesn't work.

At a Super Bowl party would you suggest doing like a salad bar situation?

Yeah.

People do want vegetables at these things, but don't think they do. They go hard on the mozzarella sticks, fries, wings. And then they're like, "I need something fresh." Do you prefer a little salad buffet situation where you have your greens dressed, maybe use a heartier green, or dressing on the side? What about doing crudités?

I think it's not either/or. Those are great, I would also have things people might not think they need. Like you said, carrots, radishes, even some avocado pieces. Fat, texture, bitter. No one thinks they want or need something bitter, but radish after you had all that fried food, it's beautiful.

So, a little bit of both. You get your crudités, some people will munch on those. You get your salad and guests build it as they want, and could even throw some of the crudités in there if they like.

That's the way to go.