Best Poker Night Food
The sixth article in our How to Host the Perfect Poker Home Game is another special one as John Donohue of Stay at Stove Dad has provided a meal plan for your epic evening of card playing.
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- Turkish Meatballs with Pomegranate Yogurt Sauce. These warmly spiced lamb meatballs are so juicy, light, and flavorful—not to mention easy—they'll be rocking your party world this holiday.
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Donohue is 42-year-old journalist and father of two who started the Stay at Stove Dad as a way of chronicling his effort’s to feed himself and his family. He’s since edited a book called Man with a Pan that features 21 writers and chefs discussing cooking.
If you like what you see here we highly recommend you check out his excellent Stay at Stove Dad blog.
Bon appetit!
Stay at Stove Dad Plus Poker
I’m not much of a gambling man, though I did have kids, which, truth be told, must be the biggest parlay of married life (and I doubled down, becoming a parent twice over), so I guess I’m not terribly risk adverse.
Back in my single days, I was once a part of a monthly poker game with some “card-playing friends” from work. I put that in quotes, because the only way our friendship could continue was if I stopped playing cards with them.
You must know that old saw about knowing who the sucker at the table is? Well, it took me about two nights around their table to figure out who it was. That was the end of my gambling days.
If I was going to have a poker party, though, I would have to serve food with it. I checked with some of my card-playing friends to see what kinds of things might work. Pretzels were the universal answer—It seems you don’t want anything sticky or greasy, lest you mess up the cards.
Well, pretzels would never satisfy me—I need to snack on protein or else I feel jangly and worn out—so I racked my brain, and came up with some other ideas.
They might be far afield, but I think they’ll meet the requirement that you hands remain more-or-less clean, and no matter what the cards turn up, you’ll be a winner with these two dishes—they’re rich in protein, and that will make you feel good, and keep going.
Mussels a la Plancha
For something savory, make mussels a la plancha. It is pretty foolproof—all you need (besides the mussels) is a cast iron frying pan. These would be good with beer, too.
- 1 pound mussels
- 1 cast-iron frying pan
- Rinse the mussels well and pull any beards off them. Use only the intact ones that are completely closed.
- Heat the cast-iron pan until hot.
- Place the mussels on the pan in one layer.
- Cook over high heat until the mussels open, release their juices, and the juices boil off. When the liquid is gone, the mussels are ready.
Best Poker Night Food
Eat them right out of the pan. They will be smoky and delicious.
This will serve about 2-3 people. Do up to 3 lbs of mussels in two pans for more folks.
Meringues
For something sweet, make meringues, which may be a dessert, but they are almost all protein, so you won’t suffer a sugar crash. These must be made well ahead of time. I don’t know if these would be any good with beer, or not.
Preheat oven to 225 degrees.
- 4 egg whites
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 1 t. vanilla extract
- Beat eggwhites til frothy.
- Add vanilla.
- Add sugar a few spoonfuls at a time.
- Beat until stiff peaks form.
Scoop onto parchment paper and bake (really, oven-dry) at 225 degrees for a long time (about a hour) -- depending on whether you like them chewy inside or crunchy.
Proper recipes will tell you to make sure the egg whites are at 70 degrees, and to sift the sugar. I'm lazy and don't do either. It is important to preheat the oven or you may burn the bottoms. Also, Joy of Cooking says that if you like chewy, 275 degrees; if you like crunchy 225 degrees. And leave them in the oven, with the heat turned off, and the door cracked open, to cool, for 30 minutes or so.
Serve with berries and ice cream on top, if you want the whole experience. Otherwise, just pop them in your mouth and keep playing.
More articles on How to Host the Perfect Poker Home Game:
- Part 6: What to Eat
Additional Home Game Tools:
Is there a better way to lose money than sitting around drinking beers and playing poker with your boys on a Saturday night?
Of course, we’d all like to take home the pot at the end of the night – who doesn’t want an extra $200-$300 padding the wallet, but the concept of having a poker night itself is enough of a distraction from the monotonous day-to-day life that it makes any financial loss seem worthwhile.
In other words, poker can be one of a few motivating factors that get you up in the morning and get you to sludge through that mind-numbing routine people call a work week – and that’s when you lose.
Best Poker Night Foods
But if you’re fortunate enough to win, poker night becomes better than New Year’s Eve or whatever “fun” holiday you can think of. (Seriously, who needs to be squished in a compact room with a bunch of drunkards you don’t know counting down from 10 to 1? Excuse my bluntness, but I’ll take the money and run every damn time.)
Aside from winning or losing, guys like poker nights because they are calm. There’s no obscene behavior from random people you don’t know; there’s no wild and uncontrolled screaming; there’s nobody ordering you to do something you don’t want to do; and there’s certainly no bad music being played in the background.
That’s what happens when 5-6 guys – or more depending if you’re doing multiple tables – who share similar interests and respect one another gather around a table to play poker.
It’s the bro version of a Thanksgiving dinner – everyone is cooperative and polite as long as everyone gets a plate and a place at the table.
Well, cooperative until there’s a dispute about the rules of the game – a staple of any poker night. That’s why it’s important that who’s ever hosting to create a set of house rules and print out whatever stuff can be found online that is valuable information. This hopefully will negate most arguments and conflicts – although as the night moves on and alcohol continues to be consumed, you can never truly predict how guys will behave.
With all that said, here are some of the essentials for having a poker night with your boys:
Alcohol (preferably top shelf liquor)
Going off that earlier point that poker night can serve as a quasi climax, or high point, of the week: there needs to be some respectable liquor brought and served. I’m talking Red Label or Jameson, at the very least. I didn’t work my ass off all week long to spend my three hours of complete freedom sipping on $10 vodka or gin – or worse, Busch Light.
If you’re going to do beer, I feel like cans are unacceptable. This isn’t a frat party – there’s no pong table being wheeled out once you’re eliminated. That means you need to have something that’s strong and tastes good to numb your sorrows.
Chewing Tobacco
I’m a big time believer that once you sit down, you shouldn’t get up (unless you have to piss). That means no group cigarette breaks – they ruin the pacing of the game and isolate non smokers. The happy medium is an endless supply of chewing tobacco. That way everyone who wants to get their fix can whenever they want without having to pause the game.
Plus, doesn’t it just feel like a badass move to say “I’ll re-raise ya” and then spit into a can. I feel like that’s always one of the best moments of any poker night.
Cigars
I swear we’ll get to some actual poker essentials soon enough – like the materials you need to play the game, but for now we’re trying to set the perfect mood.
Cigars go a long way in a poker night because they burn forever and they can be a topic of conversation within themselves in case the well of discussion runs dry.
Furthermore, they’re another good thing to have to keep players asses in their seats and not itching to go smoke a cigarette. Seriously, I hate when a game breaks for 15-20 minutes or when an individual player takes to automatically folding 3-4 hands.
True, this isn’t the World Series of Poker, but come on. Let’s have some discipline here boys.
Poker Case
This needs to have at least four different colored chips, a dealer chip and two fresh decks of cards. If any of these items are missing, so is the integrity of your poker night.
Seriously, if you’re so cheap that you can’t fork out $40-50 to buy one of these cases, then I question your manhood.
It’s a solid investment no matter how you look at it. It’s reusable, it makes others happy and it’s an essential part of playing a game that makes you relax and feel good.
Literally a win-win-win type of situation. You can’t go wrong.
Note: having a second case if you have multiple tables is a good idea. Inspecting the decks doesn’t hurt too. It sounds snobby but you are playing for cash here.
Boxed or Bagged Food
Some guys might here poker night and say fire up the grill. Wrong. You don’t cook meat for the dudes when they come over for poker, that’s what football Sunday’s are for.
For poker, you should order in a few pizzas or go shopping and get a bunch of chips and salsa. Anything more and you’re grossly overthinking it.
Like anything else, adding food can be a distraction to the night – don’t let it be.
Background Movie
I know I mentioned music somewhere up above in the introduction, but it has no place at a poker game. First, it’s distracting. Second, it’s loud regardless of where the speakers are in the room. And third, it creates more unnecessary arguments amongst players.
How can you avoid all of this you might wonder? DON’T PLAY MUSIC AT YOUR POKER NIGHT. It’s really that simple.
If one of your players wants it, tell him to go to the club.
Put on a sporting event and let that be your background noise if you deem having background noise a necessity (I don’t). If sports isn’t an option, throw on a background movie.
Any Martin Scorcese film should do just fine – Goodfellas, Casino, The Departed and, most recently added, The Wolf Of Wall Street. All of these movies are about greed in some form or another and they teeter on being three hours long. In other words, they are meant to be played during a poker game at a low volume.
I don’t know about you but after I lose, there’s nothing more consoling than seeing DeNiro and Pesci go at it or Leo, Damon, Jack and Wahlberg. I love that shit.
Money
Well, that’s why everyone comes to play in the first place, right? You can’t have a legit poker game with IOUs and crap like that. Everyone needs to bring cash and put it on the table before the cards are dealt. Otherwise you’d be better off playing Monopoly.
An empty house (or apartment)
More essential than money; the poker chips, the decks of cards and Martin Scorcese is the serenity of an open house or apartment.
If your spouse or roommate is going to be there the whole time, you mine as well cancel for another weekend. There’s no reason to have the guys over for poker if you’re not going to have absolute freedom from everyday life.
Remember, poker night is like a vacation where you don’t have to go anywhere. Anything less and you’re not doing it right.