ALLCAPS COOKBOOK PRESENTS: Perfect Desert Nachos

Desert Nachos

This is one of those moments where I share with you my Very Special Secret Recipe from My Own House What I’ve Been Making & Not Writing Down for Years. Am I throwing awesomeness to the wind instead of hoarding it to myself so that people are forced to come and visit me in order to eat the Good Stuff? YES BUT I AM VERY GENEROUS AND A GOOD PERSON.

I just do not give a fuck for secret recipes. Life is short, I don’t want to have to cook all the time, it’s best to spread the knowledge. Ancient secret gramma recipes are mostly off the back of a cocolate chip bag, anyway.

SO THE POINT IS I HAVE VERY SPECIFIC AND DEEPLY HELD OPINIONS ABOUT NACHOS, OKAY?

Some of them are TRUE FUCKING FACTS that are just about human decency in the nacho arts. Some are just my own preferences (obviously correct, but preferences nonetheless).

The first of these opinions is that mild cheddar cheese is the Bud Light of cheese. It is nothing. It is only barely not-milk. It’s just as bad for you as any other product that technically counts as cheese/beer, but without the deliciousness that justifies your choices. It is tasteless melted elephant’s foot goo-grease. If you mix it with Monterrey Jack it is EVEN WORSE BY GOD. It is a dogshit of a cheese. Even the smell is somehow…flaccid. WHY NOT TRY SOME FLAVOR WITH YOUR SOLIDIFIED DAIRY, AMERICA? Did you buy it pre-shredded, in a bag, as far from an actual cow as we are from universal health care? WHY THO. 

I’m not even going to dignify “American” cheese, if you’re making nachos with that, there’s just no help for you. It goes on burgers. If you don’t have anything else. That’s all. 

And nacho cheese sauce? *hurk* 

Another is that soggy nachos ARE THE DEVIL’S GODDAMN HANDIWORK. It’s just a waste of a chip! Weak and mushy and gross, with no contrast between textures! NO! BAD NACHOS! And they get soggy because there’s too many wet toppings put on at the wrong point in the process, so when it all bakes, it just sort of sweats out and becomes a mass of congealed unguents on top of alleged tortilla chips that have now buckled under the weight of carrying everyone else’s issues and lost the will to live.

Also I hate beans. So. WHATEVER, BEANS, YOU CAN’T HURT ME.

Also also, and this is the controversial one, I personally prefer very well-done cheese. Gooey cheese that stretches like a commercial (spoiler: that is not really cheese) is fine for aboooout five minutes while it’s hot and then gets gross and gluey very quickly. I like my cheese brown and bubbling. It’s like having tons of the crispy bits of fried cheese you scrape out of the pan when it oozes out of a sandwich or whatever. Best. IT’S THE MAILLARD REACTION, BITCHES. LOVE IT OR WHY EAT.

This is why my personal home-nachos have come to be called Desert Nachos. Because they are dry and crunchy and chewy and spicy and awesome and not a pile of wet sneezes from a series of increasingly alarming giants. I’m not saying everyone else is doing it wrong? I’m really not. But I am saying that everyone who has smugly decided there’s no way mine could change their mild-cheddar heavy-guac half-cooked problematic fave has been converted to my way of thinking by the time the tray is done, and requests said nachos whenever they come back. INCLUDING MY GRANDMOTHER.

This is more words than I usually spend explaining, and I KNOW HOW YOU HATE COMMENTARY BEFORE RECIPES, INTERNET, but you’ll just have to deal a little longer.

So the idea here is basically that nachos become a base, and you add the wet toppings to each chip individually like wasabi and soy sauce with sushi. Yes, I am an effeminite liberal latte-drinker who eats nachos with her pinky finger crooked out. WHO CARES, THE STUFF WE EFFEMINATE LIBERALS LIKE TO EAT IS DELICIOUS. That’s why Real Americans (tm) won’t eat or drink it. they hate being reminded that life can be better.

ANYWAY.

There simply isn’t any way to bake nachos with salsa or tomatoes or refried beans and then put sour cream and guacamole and whatever on top afterward and not come out with some soggy goddamn chips. NOT ALL CHIPS, but ENOUGH. If you want meat on your nachos, you also have to be careful. Chicken is fine, but even pre-cooked ground beef or pork (especially chorizo, which is great, but also soup) will excude more grease as it bakes and make everything sad. Everything that goes in the oven is a dry ingredient that WON’T WEEP TEARS OF FAT IF A LITTLE HEAT TOUCHES IT. That means no hot sauce, no veggies with a lot of water content (this means you, onions), no pastes like refried beans, no fatty meats. (Recipe includes instructions for adding PROBLEMATIC MEAT.) 

ADDITIONALLY, you must SELECT YOUR CHIP CHARACTER. You want a solid corn chip. Yellow corn, not white. Not too thin. Not too large either, no one needs a single chip the size of a ship’s sextant. My favorite is the jalapeno Better Chip Company tortilla chips. 

Finally, before laying out the ingredients, including the special weird one, I would like to point out that this food is trash. It’s delicious trash, which is part of what makes life worth living. Still trash food. I once had a birthday party whose food theme was fancy trash food and it’s the best thing I ever did. I am pro-trash, when the trash is made with care and good ingredients. And the ingredient I am SO GOD DAMNED SURE no one else has ever used in nachos makes this EXTRA TRASH. I know it’s a weird one. When I added it for the first time I didn’t even say anything to Heath, I just knew it would either die amongst the other flavors or be genius. 

Lo and behold, half an hour after we ate, he comes up saying “Were those somehow better than your other ones? Was something different? I feel like they were subtly the best.”

So yeah, pulverized Trader Joe’s Inner Peas freeze-dried peas. That’s it, that’s the secret ingredient.

I’M SO ASHAMED BUT I DON’T CARE BECAUSE I HAVE NACHOS NOTHING REALLY MATTERS THAT MUCH WHEN YOU HAVE NACHOS.

And now you have nachos too. Forever. BECAUSE I WROTE ALL THIS DOWN FOR OUR SINS.

Ingredients (serves two hungry people, 4 noshers who are eating other things later)

1 bag Better Chip Company jalapeno tortilla chips or chips of your choice

1.5-2 cups of grated, not pre-shredded in a bag, good extra sharp white cheddar cheese (to taste, really, if it doesn’t seem like enough, grate more). It’s like wine, don’t cook with something too gross to just eat/drink plain.

Protein—I usually use about half a chicken breast, seasoned with salt, pepper, and garlic powder, cooked, cooled, and torn into small pieces. This is a great use for storebought rotisseries. You could skip the protein, seitan would also be good if you’re veggie/vegan. Remember to keep ingredients dry if you’re going the tofu route. If you use ground beef/chorizo/etc, use 1/2 pound at most, fry it in a skillet until brown (with appropriate taco-y spices, you savage, no one wants plain ground beef), then sandwich the meat between paper towels until you’ve got all the moisture out that you can and set aside.

Sigh. 8-9 freeze dried peas after the fashion of Trader Joe’s Inner Peas, crushed into a fine green dust.

Nacho spice blend:

1/2 teaspoon chili powder

1/2 teaspoon cumin

1/4 teaspoon garlic powder

1/8-1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

1/4 teaspoon dried oregano

1/4-1/2 teaspoon black pepper

Sprinkling of salt

(If you need more spice blend just keep the ratios)

Everything else you like on nachos, prepared in small bowls. No veggies in the oven except pre-sauteed and paper-towel pressed hot peppers, red or green bell peppers, that sort of thing. Don’t @ me but sauteed shredded carrots with cumin and garlic are really good here, but not part of my mainstay recipe because who has the time when you want nachos.

1/4 cup finely shredded cilantro (optional, for the genetically forsaken)

NACHO WOMAN CAT VALENTE SAYS OOH YEAH

Preheat oven to 425. 

Combine spices in a small bowl and set aside. Arrange chips in a single layer on a large baking tray lined with foil. Make sure every chip has exposed real estate to receive cheese. 

Sprinkle the Inner Peas dust over bare naked chip action. Then spread about 1/2 the grated cheese evenly over that so no one knows your trash secret. Add half of any approved and pre-dessicated veggies and half the protein if using chicken or seitan, if using anything else, reserve 1/2 cup of cheese and 1/2 teaspoon of spice blend before you do any of this, we’ll be getting to your difficult meat buddies in a moment. Take some spice blend between your fingers, hold your hand about two feet off the tray, and sift spice onto the proto-nachomolecule. Do this with half the spice mixture.

Now add the rest of the cheese (unless you’re using one of the Tricksy Meats) and repeat, topping with the remainder of the protein, spices, and any veggies. 

Bake at 425 for 12 minutes or until golden brown and the cheese has bubbled up on the surface of the chips.

If using Apocryphal Meats: follow all previous instructions (including pressing excess fat out of the meat), but reserve 1/2 cup of cheese and 1/2 teaspoon of spices. Remove tray from oven after 6 minutes, add meat in an even layer over the nachos, then sprinkle reserved cheese and spice blend over the top of that and return to oven for the additional 6 minutes. It might need a minute or two more to get that baked-in desert nacho texture, but 425 is an ANGRY TEMPERATURE, so just check frequently after 6 minutes until it’s nice and brown. 

Serve with bowls of all the stuff you didn’t bake in: sour cream, guacamole, beans, onions, tomatoes, salsa, whatever. Spoon in desired proportions onto each chip as you eat it or slab of chips on your plate, and enjoy your good choices.