The Chef Back: NBA-themed recipes to get you through quarantine

Many of us are coping with quarantine and social isolation by spending a lot more time in the kitchen. Here, the staff of The Step Back shares some of their favorite NBA-themed recipes.

At The Step Back, our brilliant and creative team of basketball writers have been managing this period of quarantine, social isolation and fearful uncertainty with plenty of wistful basketball talk and, increasingly, cooking.

More and more recipe suggestions have been making their way into our daily email threads and so we thought it would be fun to pick a few favorites, put an NBA spin on them and share the culinary wealth. Please enjoy this first (maybe only) installment of NBA-themed recipes from “The Chef Back.”

‘Sheed’s Chili

From Jonathan Macri (@JCMacriNBA)

As a home chef, one of the most liberating moments of my life was the realization that I could throw literally anything into a pot of chili and that it would be perfectly acceptable. In fact, I challenge you to find something on one of the side doors of your refrigerator right now that would not work in a chili recipe. Looking in mine, mint jelly is probably the thing that makes the least sense, and yet, with a few dozen other ingredients, who the hell would really notice it?

That also doesn’t mean it would make the chili better.

Over the last two decades, New York has specialized in making vat after vat of chili that go something like this: seven parts mint jelly, three parts spam, two parts pickles, and a gallon of expired milk. Needless to say, things have rarely come together in a palatable way.

The exception, of course, was the beautiful amalgamation of ingredients that was the 2012-13 Knicks. That team — assembled as Donnie Walsh was gracefully exiting the franchise and ostensibly put together by Glenn Grunwald — was the equivalent of throwing a fridge full of odds and ends into a pot and having the good fortune for it to work perfectly.

It was comprised of Melo, peak Tyson Chandler, nearly-retired Jason Kidd, Round Ray Felton, a still-intriguing Iman Shumpert, sharpshooter Steve Novak, taped-together Amar’e, on-his-best-behavior J.R. Smith, the GOAT Pablo Prigioni, and a motley bench crew the likes of which has never been seen before and will likely never be seen again featuring Marcus Camby, K-Mart, Q-Rich, Kurt Thomas, Chris Copeland, and of course, ‘Sheed.

It was such a miraculous season in its flawed beauty that it inspired me to put together the following recipe. Thankfully Roy Hibbert wasn’t there to block me as I attempted to add any of the following into the pool…

Ingredients (brown the meat first, then gradually add the rest; simmer 3-6 hours)

1 lb. maple bacon
6 hot pork sausages (casings off)
3 lbs. ground beef
4 jalapenos (chopped)
2 long hot bell peppers (chopped)
4 cloves of garlic (finely chopped)
4 yellow onions (chopped)
1 butternut squash (1-inch cubed)
1 can poblano chiles in adobo sauce (chopped)
1 can creamed corn
2 cans crushed tomatoes
1 jar vodka sauce
1 cup ketchup
3 tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
1 tbsp. hot sauce
1 cup chicken broth
1 cup sugar (or maple syrup)
1 tbsp. black pepper
1 tsp. salt
1.5 tsp. cayenne pepper
1 cup water (optional, depending on desired thickness)

Joel “Jive Turkey” Embiidburgers

From Garth Johnson (@GarthMJohnson1)

How do you energize a dry and tasteless turkey patty into a succulent, juicy burger that you want to make again and again? You Joel Embiid the hell out of it.

If you have taken the time to read an article that mashes up NBA basketball players like Joel Embiid, and food recipes with more lumps than momma’s potatoes, then you probably love sports; or you are extremely bored, but I’m guessing both. What many of us don’t love are the nondescript, robotic answers and actions that many of our favorite professional sports stars give to us on the playing field or in the media.

They give us coach-speak and unnecessary flattery for their opponents; the team is always working together to get better and everyone loves each other like it’s banana boats for all. They are like the turkey burgers we have all had but belong on the trash heap rather than our dinner plate. They don’t give us anything beyond what they are supposed to. Bland sustenance over juicy substance, even if incredible acts of athleticism and sportsmanship are equated with simple bread and meat in this analogy.

Enter the NBA’s royal jester in Joel Embiid. Want him to call out other players and tell rivals they are too in touch with their feelings? Done. Want him to mix it up on the court and get into wrestling matches, middle finger exchanges, trash talk and stare-downs while playing to the crowds that loves and hates him? I think it’s seven dones but don’t quote me on that. We’ll run the analytics later on Nylon Calculus.

Joel Embiid adds the spice, the flavor, the excitement to this recipe for turkey burgers and the grind of the NBA schedule. By Embiiding-up this forlorn food, it just might become a go-to part of your culinary repertoire.

Shaq = heaping amt.    Kawhi = tablespoon     Steph = teaspoon     JJBarea = pinch

1 16oz. package of Joel Embiid (ground turkey)
2 pieces of sliced bread, preferably the end crusts because everyone hates them otherwise
Shaqs of thyme, marjoram, oregano
2-3 Stephs of salt, smoked paprika, ground pepper
1 Kawhi total of equal parts fennel seed and rosemary ground up
1 Kawhi garlic powder
1-2 JJBareas of red pepper flakes
1 Kawhi Worcestershire sauce
1 Shaq of Private Selection Fire-roasted poblano ranch dressing, but substitute horseradish and/or ranch dressing if you don’t live in the Pacific Northwest or Alaska

Combine all the ingredients and spice to taste.

I personally use a lot of spices when cooking so if you follow my recipe, it will be just like James Harden getting to the free-throw line:  it will seem like it’s way too much but that’s just the way it is. The breadcrumbs soak in a lot of the juices but you have to add some type of wet ingredient to make the burgers stay moist. Worcestershire and ranch are mine, although any thick sauce or condiment will work. Mix it up thoroughly to Pat Beverly vs. Russell Westbrook levels and form into patties that fit your bun size. Since this comes from Alaska, I pan fry my burgers a lot and use bacon lard to add some extra flavor. It is almost impossible to overcook, but the proper ratio of bread crumbs to wet ingredients is crucial or the burgers can turn to cardboard if too many crumbs are added. Use your best judgement, and cook to 175 degrees.

The Irving extras

Just like Kyrie Irving’s jaw-dropping showmanship on the court, I like my Joel Embiids dressed up with some extra flair and flourishes.

1 12oz. package of bacon
1 red onion
1 avocado

Slices of your favorite cheese, and/or a 4 oz. package of Jordan/Kobe/LeBron GOAT cheese, crumbled into your Joel Embiid turkey mixture before forming your patties is another great addition.

Cook your bacon, slice your avocado and cut your onion into strips to carmelize in butter and olive oil while adding a JJBarea or two of salt to help them sweat. Splash a Shaq of balsamic vinegar on them about halfway through and cook about 15-20 minutes.

The side dish

I wanted to go fancy and make Caris Haricot LaVerts, but since we need to pull together in times of strife; good, old American Danny/Draymond/Gerald/Jeff/LaMychal Green Beans with Darvin Ham and John Wallnuts will accompany Joel Embiid on the menu.

Toast a quarter cup of Wallnuts and then gently crush while finely dicing a quarter cup of Ham. Add Ham along with some caramelized onions to the cooked green beans and let it gel for a minute or two, stirring occasionally and top with Wallnuts before serving.

Add your favorite extras, the Irving package is mine, with lettuce, ketchup and mayo, have a Shaq spoonful or two of beans and enjoy. NBonApetite.

Dragichicken paprikash

From Trevor Magnotti (@IllegalScreens)

Goran Dragic is more than likely going to be the forgotten point guard of this generation. He’s always been good but played at a sub-elite level. The one-time All-Star has been cranking out quality play for nearly his entire career, but outside of a Eurobasket title in 2017, doesn’t really have much to show for it.

It’s fitting that he’s going to be the guy that’s forgotten among this decade’s numerous stellar point guards because his country’s cooking is often left out of discussions of great cuisine. French and Italian cooking get all the press in European culinary discussion, but central European cooking has its dishes that will blow you away, just like Dragic’s play will do on occasion. It’s typically heartier foods — pastas, goulashes, and stews — but you can find some positively stellar flavors with simple ingredients here. Today, I’m going to show you how to make the Dragic of Slovenian dishes — kokošli paprikaš, or chicken paprikash.

This is an incredibly simple dish with four main ingredients. It’s a stew served over noodles in the traditional central European method. The dish originated in Hungary, but you can find variations throughout the region thanks to the Austro-Hungarian empire — In Czechia, Serbia, or in Dragic’s home country of Slovenia.

The four main ingredients can be compared to Dragic’s skill set, as follows:

Paprika — This is the backbone of the dish, akin to Dragic’s flair. This dish is all about the spice that this region owns, and is a vessel for exploring all of the possibilities you can create with this simple spice. Everything else works to bring out the flavor in this essential spice, just like how all of Dragic’s skill set works to help him win with flair on game-winners, fancy passes, and sexy finger roll finishes. For this dish, you’ll want smoked paprika, which is the 2013-14 Dragic season of Paprika types. It smells like bacon and tastes savory and smoky, which will make everything else sing.

Onion — This is Dragic being left-handed. Lefties are just more fun to watch because of how defenders have to shade them differently, and that opens up a lot of the more fun stuff Dragic can do. That’s what the onion does in this dish. Onion and paprika is an unsung combo in cooking because the onion gives the paprika spice a nice earthy compliment and the paprika helps quell the bite of the onion.

Chicken — Dragic’s shooting. A paprikash with no meat is just an onion stew, and while those are okay, just make French onion soup instead. Similarly, if Dragic couldn’t shoot would just be Ricky Rubio, and ask Timberwolves fans how well that works out.

Noodles — The noodles provide the basic texture and structure for the sauce to work. They aren’t flashy in and of themselves, but without them, you have nothing else that works. That’s Dragic’s finishing at the rim — without it, his shooting, passing, vision, and flair for the moment would mean nothing. He’s been a near-70 percent finisher at his peak, which is elite. When he’s not at that level, he’s not as good. That’s how the noodles function here — you’ll definitely want them, and you need the correct type as well. You’ll want egg noodles here, as they do a good job of absorbing the paprikash sauce without falling apart or getting the texture too out of wack. Since I’m an Amish country resident, I’ll be using pot pie noodles from Little Barn, but your typical egg noodle bag you can get for a dollar at the grocery store works just as well.

On to the recipe!

Serves: 4
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 70 minutes
Ingredients:

1 lb. boneless chicken breasts, cut into bite-size pieces
1.5 tbsp smoked or regular paprika
2 slices bacon (if using regular paprika only — helps replicate the smoked flavor)
1 package egg noodles
2 small sweet onions, chopped
0.25 cup sour cream
0.25 tsp cayenne pepper
2 tbsp all-purpose flour
2 tbsp olive oil
2.25 cups water

Heat the oil in the frying pan, chop the onions, and add the onions and paprika (and bacon, if using that) to brown them. This creates a roux that is the base of your sauce. Stir occasionally until the onions are starting to caramelize.

While this is cooking, cut up your chicken into pieces and add it to a gallon Ziploc bag with the flour. It doesn’t need to be a ton of flour — you’re not breading chicken nuggets. Just enough to coat the chicken, and give the sauce some beef.

Once the onions are starting to turn gold, add the chicken in and brown it, stirring constantly. Remember that this is going to stew for awhile, so you don’t need to get the chicken cooked through at all. A good marker to end this step is when you don’t see any flour that is white on the chicken anymore, you’re ready. Stop stirring, add the cayenne for heat, set the burner to low, and cover.

Simmer for an hour. Don’t touch it. Seriously, leave it alone. Don’t be the 2014-15 Phoenix Suns and take the lid off or stir a bunch (which is the signing Isaiah Thomas of cooking). Just run your offense and enjoy the smells, which is half the pleasure with this dish. Per my fiance, an authority on the subject since it’s her favorite dish, “Your house/apartment is going to smell like caramelized onions, a hint of smoke, and spicy goodness for the next hour, so let that distract you from meddling.”

About 40 minutes through the simmer, get water boiling and get your egg noodles going. They should finish right as your buzzer sounds for the sauce.

Remove the sauce from heat, and then add the sour cream in and stir. This thickens the sauce and takes you from a watery mess to perfection. Let this sit while you drain and dish out the pasta.

And finally, dish out a healthy helping of pasta and ladle the sauce over. Pair with a dark red wine or a robust porter or imperial stout, if you prefer. My go-to is Narwhal Imperial Stout from Sierra Nevada. Enjoy!

Danilo Cavatelli

From Paul Centopani (@PCentopani)

As the league’s premier Italian player, Danilo Gallinari gets the honor of having his name mangled into a food pun for The Step Back’s recipe collection.

I am fortunate to descend from a line of gastronomic inclination. My childhood prominently featured family gatherings with abundant tables of amazing food. This still holds true today, just further and farther between. When I want to dive into the umami of my nostalgia, I go back to Sundays growing up.

Like clockwork, the aromatic kiss of garlic and onions simmering on the stove would sneak into my room, soon to be joined by tomatoes to make the gravy (red sauce). A bounty of meatballs and brasciole would be added to the symphony and cook for hours. We’d enjoy this slowly-built masterpiece with various pasta week to week, but none beat my grandmother’s homemade cavatelli.

Of course, my grandmother doesn’t use written recipes. Everything comes from her memory vault of time-honored traditions passed down through the generations. For me to capture how to make it meant taking notes through observation and broken English. Just like Gallinari’s game, it’s whimsical and full of finesse.

Ingredients:

8 cups all-purpose flour
3 eggs, room temperature
3 tablespoons salt
3-4 cups water, room temperature

Directions:

On a big, flat surface (that you thoroughly cleaned and dried right before this), pile up the eight cups of flour and three tablespoons of salt into a mountain. Make a crater at the top of that mountain, crack an egg and add a little bit of water.

With your hands, break up the egg and start mixing everything together. Continue with the second and third eggs when you reach a moisture impasse, adding water intermittently until you completely incorporate the entire flour/salt mountain.

Once everything’s combined, knead with the heels of your palms until dough is smooth and elastic, about 5-10 minutes. Do not bite the dough ball. For some inexplicable reason, a primal, lizard-brained urge will come over you and you’re gonna wanna bite it. You must resist. Cover the dough with your best mopine and let it rest for 10-15 minutes.

After the resting period, cut off a hunk and roll it out like a Play-Doh snake, about the circumference of a dime. Dust the dough and your surface with flour to prevent sticking during the rollout. Once the snake is formed, cut it into half-inch pillows (or a third of an inch if you made thicc snakes). We’re not robots, you just gotta feel it.

Take your index and middle fingers together and press into each pillow and drag it along the surface so it curls. We’ll call this technique the Italian Finger Roll. Lay out the finished product on sheets or parchment paper dusted with flour and don’t let them touch. Lastly, and this is important, you need to put on Una notte vicino al mare by Adriano Celentano.

Continue until you finish with the rest of the dough. Fresh pasta is the best, so cook it right away. If you made too much (which you probably did) or want to save some of the dough for a later date, wrap it in a layer of parchment paper, then a layer of plastic wrap and freeze.

The Baked John Salmons with a side of D’Angelo Brussels Sprouts

From Micah Wimmer (@micahwimmer)

I spent the first 25 years of my life under the false impression that I did not like salmon. It’s not that I was a picky eater growing up, but there was one particular dish my mother frequently made that I could not stand: salmon patties. Because of this, I simply assumed that salmon was awful in general and avoided it until the grocery store I was then working at had some free salmon available for employees that I took on a lark because, well, I was being paid what a grocery store worker makes. I greatly enjoyed it and my love for this upstream swimmer grew exponentially when I ordered bagel and lox for the first time and began having it so frequently that the breakfast combo became a constitutive part of my personality. It’s very good, in my opinion.

So for those of you who are salmon curious, I have a simple dish for you. It’s about as simple as these things get and if even if it fails to blow your mind, I promise that it’s a better option than having ramen for the eighth consecutive night.

Get a salmon filet, and place it on or in a cooking tray that is safe to go into the oven. Before doing so, coat the bottom with just a tad of butter. Once the salmon has been put in, drizzle it with olive oil and whatever seasonings you prefer. I personally recommend using some lemon juice and garlic, or just lemon pepper if you’re in a bind, but you can make this dish as fancy or rudimentary as you like depending on what you already have available. That’s literally all the prep work this requires. Then you just put it in the oven at 375 degrees for 20 minutes and it should be good!

While the salmon is in the oven, take advantage of the time it needs to bake in order to make yourself a side of brussels sprouts. This is also a very easy dish to prepare as all you have to do is take the sprouts, chop them into halves or fourths depending on your personal preference, then place them into a skillet coated with olive oil. Once they are on the stove, pour a little more olive oil over the sprouts and season them with salt and pepper to taste. Cook them over low to medium heat for about seven to ten minutes, until they are tender.

By the time your brussels sprouts are done, it should be about time to take the salmon out of the oven and then you too, like DeMarre Carroll can look at your creation and say “That’s called SAL-mon.”

The Egg Walton

From Bryan Harvey (@Bryan_S_Harvey)

Bill Walton, like all individuals, is a product of context, and the same goes for The Egg Walton. In his book The Breaks of the Game, David Halberstam writes of the conflict Walton embodied:

"Bill Walton loved the basketball program at UCLA because it was so tightly disciplined and so meticulously well run, so little left in the hands of chance. By contrast he loved the rest of his college years because they represented the height in personal freedom. He was lionized, but in a very light sophisticated way, and on his terms, not so lionized that he lost his privacy. (317)"

In an age of social distancing and self-enforced quarantines, we are all occupying smaller worlds than we would in healthier times. The act of staying home is to be “lionized,” and yet staying home largely consists of binging unwatched Netflix shows, pretending the work matters, feigning business as usual. We have climbed back into the college dormitory — we have crawled back into the womb. The efforts are mundane, but they prevent the overrunning of the healthcare system. In other words, by being kids, we are letting the adults handle the situation. We are, for lack of a better metaphor, on the sidelines.

Bill Walton, his ragged carrottop mane as free-flowing and friendly as the counterculture, knew a little something something about being on the sidelines. He knew a little something something about broken bones and cracked feet. He knew about getting back to basics after riding some very high highs. The 1977 Portland Trail Blazers won the NBA championship without anyone dominating the ball or the stat sheet. They won with complementary parts. Then the next year they raced out of the gate at a record-setting pace, but injuries to their redheaded star ultimately derailed the effort.

Following this sad state of affairs, Walton would land in San Diego, not far from his UCLA glory days. The light in Southern California is always full of promise. The history always speaks to tragedy. The Egg Walton is no different. Full of complementary parts, its perfection is easily achieved. Full of basic elements, however, its real achievement is the asking, what else could have been?

Crack six to eight eggs in a bowl. Scramble them in your own unique fashion. Add a splash of whole milk (or whatever’s in your fridge).

Feel free to add in some shredded cheddar cheese. If you have shredded Mexican cheese, then that works too.

Add in massaged kale. If you’re wondering, why kale and not spinach? Kale is much more in the spirit of Blazer Walton. If you want to go all Clipper on us, then, by all means, add bagged spinach that has been neither massaged nor sung to in a Jerry Garcia whisper.

All this egg and cheese and kale is going into a frying pan. Stagger the introduction of ingredients to the heated surface. Scramble as it suits you.

Have a few Everything Bagels on hand. Slice them open, so they can be used to make sandwiches. They may even arrive to your kitchen counter already sliced.

Lay a slice of pepper jack cheese (or Monterey Jack) on an open bagel slice. In my house, we call this the Jack Ramsay treadmill.

In a bowl to the side, you’ll want to mix the sauce that is a special tribute to the ol’ redhead. Use equal parts sriracha and honey. Bill is, after all, something of an enigma, the ultimate team player who demanded a trade out of egotistical spite, the soul-searching journeyman unafraid to sell his soul in the broadcast booth, the best damn player to ever play a supporting role for the Boston Celtics. You want the mix to be both spicy and sweet. I’ve heard that some people prefer using sweet and sour sauce instead of the sriracha and honey mix. Either of the two drizzles red, and that’s mostly what matters here.

Lastly, place the full Egg Walton in a toaster oven. You can choose to complete this last step with the sandwich either opened or closed. After all, such is the way with legacies.

Buddy Hield Hashbrowns (with ramps)

From Ian Levy (@HickoryHigh)

Ramps, also known as wild leeks, are a seasonal delicacy in the northeast. Early in the spring, you’ll find them beginning to poke their green shoots from the muddy, decaying mass of detritus that accumulates on the forest floor over the long cycle of fall and winter. They only appear for a few weeks and it’s a burst of flavor, punctuating the transition back toward warmth with their bright and garlicky flavor and aroma.

I like to think of them as the Buddy Hield of wild foods.

Hield was selected with the No. 6 pick by the Pelicans in the 2016 NBA Draft, a potentially dynamic shooter who could, finally, give Anthony Davis the partner he needed. Hield struggled through the beginning of that season, averaging 8.6 points per game and shooting under 40 percent from the field. The Pelicans saw an opportunity and flipped him to the Sacramento Kings to help land DeMarcus Cousins.

That spring, reborn in Sacramento, Hield began pushing his way out of the rotting leaves and mud. Over his final 25 games with the Kings that season, he averaged 15.1 points, 4.1 rebounds and 1.8 assists per game, shooting 42.8 percent on 3-pointers and 52.5 percent inside the arc. It was part of a long tradition of young players on bad teams blossoming as the bitter winter cold begins to retreat.

That tradition has been interrupted this season but the ramps are thick in the woods near my house and our family has been eating them daily. Ramp pesto is a treat but this quick hashbrowns recipe is a perfect quick way to highlight their flavor if you stumble into some and (like Buddy Hield’s explosion with the Kings) doesn’t require much in the way of high-end ingredients (teammates).

Ingredients:

6-8 small Yukon gold potatoes
Half a medium white or yellow onion, chopped
1 small bunch of ramps
Butter
Salt
Cheese

Half the potatoes and then put on a cutting board, flat side down. Slice them into quarter-inch half-rounds. While you’re doing this begin melting the butter in a heavy skillet, adding the chopped onion to begin caramelizing. I like adding some regular onion to this recipe because it adds more caramelization than you can get with the smaller ramps and that softer, sweet flavor just accentuates the spiciness of the ramps (which have more of a garlic flavor).

Once the onions begin to brown, add the potatoes. Stir occasionally so you get some text and crunchiness on the potatoes but so they don’t burn.

The ramps need to be cleaned thoroughly. The green quick comparatively quickly so I like to cut off the stalks, chop them and add them with the potatoes. I then add the greens when the potatoes are pretty much down and let them cook for another five minutes or so. Any herbs or spices do well in here but we usually just do salt and grate a bit of cheese on top.

Enjoy!