Fly, recipes, fly! A cookbook from a former chef of the Philadelphia Eagles is landing in bookstores on August 26.
“Kickoff Kitchen,” from chef Tim Lopez, is a celebration of regional recipes that are perfect for gameday. The book features 64 recipes — an appetizer and a main dish for every NFL team — with an eye to celebrating regional specialties.
“The audience is really pretty much every NFL fan,” Lopez said. “Every single team has its own staples because of the culinary traditions around that team and around that area of the country.”
Lopez worked for the Birds for 13 years, and was onboard for their first Super Bowl win (he even has a championship ring to prove it). Along with his cooking duties, he was part of the team’s “Feeding the Birds” podcast, where he connected with players like Jordan Mailata, Zach Ertz, Lane Johnson and Jason Kelce over a shared love of food.
While in the kitchen, he helped introduce a “devour the competition” concept, where he would create visiting opponents’ regional foods in the Eagles cafeteria ahead of their visit, as a way for everyone to get in their heads and, well … “devour the competition.”
That concept is what eventually inspired the cookbook, which is aimed for curious eaters from all fandoms to expand their palates beyond their own regional cuisine.
“I wanted to make this available to anybody who roots for any team and let them experience the different flavors of the USA through these types of recipes,” he said, adding, “I really hope they’ll take a look at not just eating the same thing every gameday.”
Lopez said that exposing fans to other regional recipes helps them connect to the sport on another level and takes them out of their comfort zone. While Birds fans will definitely not soften their rivalry with an opponent, they can at least gain a deeper appreciation for the food that part of the country calls its own.
“We might hate Dallas, but there’s some really good food in Texas,” he said. “I don’t think we should hate that food. I don’t think we should discount Texas barbecue or Texas chili … I’ve got [chicken-fried steak bites with gravy] in the book.”
While Texas barbecue before the Eagles face Dallas may seem like sacrilege in many Philly households — many in the organization balked at the idea — Lopez said that was the point of “devour the competition.” He argued that the insight into an opponent and what their fans likely served at a tailgate was its own kind of scouting report, with the added benefit of a full and content stomach — where you also get to eat your enemy.
“We would always try to find different ways to psych up everybody for game day,” he said. “Fans like to get psyched up, and the players were already kind of psyched up — It’s their job. But we always wanted to take something to the next level in the cafeteria, to get people excited about the food that we were serving.”
What are the Philly dishes?
Lopez chose the cheesesteak egg roll and the roast pork sandwich as the two dishes that represent Philly.
The former because Lopez thought it was an uncontroversial way to incorporate a classic. “I was trying not to get into a fight,” he joked, alleviating the pressure to perfect the city’s staple sandwich.
With cheesesteak covered in the starter, he could have the roast pork sandwich as the latter. Why? Because he has a pure love for it.
“I think people who enjoy cheesesteaks would give me the nod and say, ‘Yeah, OK, I agree with the roast Philly pork.’” Lopez said. “That’s why I didn’t put buffalo wings in for the Buffalo Bills. I’m not going to find a quintessential recipe for that and stick it in this book, as everybody does them a different way.”
Lopez’s roast pork recipe drew on the two Philly meccas of the sandwich: Tommy DeNic’s in Reading Terminal Market and John’s Roast Pork in South Philly.
To really get in the gameday mindset, Billy Penn decided it was necessary to test out the recipes ourselves.
Making the cheesesteak egg roll
Cheesesteak egg rolls are like the fancy cousin of the cheesesteak. You can often find them at a catered event or on the Continental’s menu, but it turns out making them isn’t as hard as you might think.
“The spring roll, you can make that with family,” Lopez assured. “You can make it with friends.”
While you need to be careful handling hot oil, the recipe is fun, straightforward and the wrapper folding is a nice craft project. What’s more, we could find every ingredient at our local Giant.
Lopez said he perfected the art of the cheesesteak eggroll over multiple years, making them for many, many Eagles events. While this isn’t his exact recipe — as he put it, “I didn’t want to give away all my trade secrets” — he has a long history with this dish.
He had some exclusive tips on the recipe for Billy Penn:
- While the book says whiz is allowed, Lopez prefers mixing provolone with some white American cheese for extra flavor and a better consistency.
- Use a cornstarch slurry to seal your edges when you’re folding the wrapper by rubbing a little bit around the entire outside. This avoids the complete nightmare of the wrapper busting open, and it will make it extra crispy!
- Let the roll sit out to rest a bit on a wire rack before frying to make the seal extra tight.
While the deep frying seemed like the toughest aspect of this recipe, really, the most tedious part was the mise en place. There were a lot of onions and green peppers to chop. (While we are usually strictly against green peppers in our cheesesteak, we did enjoy it in this eggroll counterpart.) We also watched a YouTube video on how to fold eggroll wrappers, to make sure we had it right.
Despite our fears, the egg rolls crisped up nice and golden brown. The sriracha ketchup was an easy and savory addition for dip, and the WHYY staff who sampled them called the end result “kind of addictive” with a “D’alessandro’s-like quality.”
Making the roast pork sandwich
Lopez warned that the steps for the roast pork were a little more in depth, especially if you hadn’t cooked up a large piece of meat before. He stressed that the key factor was time and recommended roasting the meat a couple days before it was needed, then leaving it in the fridge to rest before slicing.
He had exclusive advice for this recipe Billy Penn as well:
- Have a good thermometer to check the internal temperature of the meat, and try to take it off the heat when it reaches an internal temperature of 178 degrees Fahrenheit, slightly before the book’s recommended range of 180 to 185. The residual heat will lead to carryover cooking while the meat rests, raising its temperature a couple degrees and leaving it a perfect medium rare.
- While a deli slicer is ideal to cut the meat, you can also use a really sharp chef’s knife or a bread knife with really small serrations to make your thin slices.
Time was not a luxury for this novice Billy Penn chef. We started the recipe process the night before, putting the rub on the pork (butt, not shoulder) and refrigerating it overnight, then waking up before dawn to begin the roast in a slow cooker, as opposed to a Dutch oven. We were just awake enough to catch the meat reaching the recommended temperature for carryover cooking.
Did you know broccoli rabe and broccolini are two different things? We didn’t, but our roasted broccolini still went well with the meat, sharp provolone and store-prepared long hot peppers. The Billy Penn staff enjoyed the meal, though some felt a little more meat and other fillings could have been added to the roll.
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Billy Penn’s trending news reporter Nick Kariuki attempted to make the roast pork sandwiches from former Eagles chef Tim Lopez’s “Kickoff Kitchen” cookbook. (Nick Kariuki/Billy Penn) -
Billy Penn’s trending news reporter Nick Kariuki attempted to make the roast pork sandwiches from former Eagles chef Tim Lopez’s “Kickoff Kitchen” cookbook. (Nick Kariuki/Billy Penn) -
Billy Penn’s trending news reporter Nick Kariuki cooks up the broccoli rabe — broccolini, rather, for the roast pork sandwiches from former Eagles chef Tim Lopez’s “Kickoff Kitchen” cookbook. (Nick Kariuki/Billy Penn) -
Billy Penn’s trending news reporter Nick Kariuki attempted to make the roast pork sandwiches from former Eagles chef Tim Lopez’s “Kickoff Kitchen” cookbook. (Nick Kariuki/Billy Penn)
Learning about places, through tailgate food
Creating 64 recipes from 32 teams involved extensive research to make sure the book was authentic and paid homage to its source material.
“I cold-called places, I emailed people, I went on blogs, I watched YouTube videos, I went into subreddits and talked to people about the classic cuisines in Minnesota and Denver and Houston and Dallas,” Lopez said. “So it was really interesting to me, because I’m a huge fan of food culture.”
It’s easy to dismiss gameday food as greasy or lowbrow. However, Lopez wrote this cookbook as a love letter to gameday food, and the care and connection that goes into and comes from it.
“After the research, you gain an insight into the hardworking, blue-collar class that came up with a lot of these different recipes as a necessity,” he said. “There’s a recipe in the book called City ‘Chicken’ [from Cleveland] that’s made with pork, and the reason it was made with pork is because chicken was so expensive.”
Ultimately, Lopez loves these recipes because they are blue-collar foods — like chilis and sandwiches — that come from a place of hard work and love.
“Some of [the recipes] from the north, like the hot dish in Minnesota, was born out of Depression eating,” he said, talking about the period in U.S. history, not the Vikings’ dismal first-round exit from last season’s playoffs. “They were scraping together what they could get to make something filling for the family, and it just became a tradition.”
Lopez said one of his favorite experiences was making and trying Chicago’s Italian beef sandwich — now world famous because of Hulu’s “The Bear” — for the first time ever, then trying to improve his attempt at the giardiniera for it. The novelty made him appreciate the greater exposure and admiration to previously unfamiliar cuisines, as well the reasons they developed the way they did.
“You realized why there’s so much sausages and chili in the Midwest, why there’s so many different kinds of flavors in the Southwest, why there’s such a rich background with seafood in the Northeast,” he said “It all kind of makes sense. You kind of knew it, but when you dig into the history of it, you just appreciate it a whole lot more.”
Lopez’s dream Super Bowl food matchup from the recipes in his book would be a battle of the chili, between Cincinnati’s skyline chili (the book’s recipe drew a lot from former Eagles tight end Brent Celek grandmother’s recipe) and Denver’s pork chili verde.
He stressed that this was not an onfield Super Bowl he would like to see.
“My roots and my fandom are the Philadelphia Eagles,” said Lopez, who’s originally from upstate New York. “I’m dyed in the wool, a hardcore fan for them.”
“Fuel for game day”
While Lopez no longer cooks for the Eagles, he is still a devoted chef in the city, working as a chef instructor at Jules E. Mastbaum High School, a vocational technical school in Kensington.
“I work in one of the best schools in the city,” he said. “We teach them pretty much anything you could need to know about cooking, and also a little bit about baking.”
The job, he said, allows him to spend more time for himself.
“I get to see my family more, and I get to make the difference in the lives of every class — which has about 24 students in it,” he said. “I get to get them thinking differently about food, and get to watch them grow their skill set, and I get to help them find jobs.”
For those interested in ordering “Kickoff Kitchen,” the book will be available on August 26, just in time for the season opening week. You can pre-order it now.
And while he no longer works with the Eagles, Lopez said that he will always cherish his time with the team. This cookbook is an homage to that period of his life and the people who feed our athletes.
“To know that I was a part of the first [Eagles’ Super Bowl win], and just to see them go on to get another one, it’s a legacy that I had a very small part in. And to know that it’s still going strong, and they’re doing everything they can — those cooks and those chefs in the back — to make sure these guys have the fuel for game day, that just makes me happy.”
