1) Quality control. You can make nachos with excellent cheese, a great quality protein, and you won't get nachos that have olives (gross) on them because the kitchen screwed up. You can also accomplish the number one secret to delicious nachos (THOROUGH CHEESE DISTRIBUTION) yourself, and with your eagle eye at the helm, your cheese will be melted all the way through (also key).
2) You will never run out of the key nacho accoutrement: salsa and a giant vat of sour cream. Perhaps you might even choose to put out homemade guacamole (recipe forthcoming). Restaurants sometimes don't give you sour cream unless you ask for it (terrible) and usually their guacamole comes from a bag.
3) The bar doesn't have the My So-Called Life boxed set or several episodes of Gossip Girl on DVR, does it? Our motto: nachos are always better with Chuck Bass.
4) It might just be you and a friend on nacho night. If you were at a bar, there might be all that nonsense about not ordering another round, not eating the melted cheese straight from the bottom of the pile, or looking "proper" or "ladylike" by not finishing the entire order. At home, you can cook up a mean batch of nachos, eat the entire thing, and both put down a six pack of beer while thanking jesus that you went with the sweatpants.
Full disclosure: These rules do not apply when you are watching football/Red Sox. Someday we will tell you about the Night of the 10 Beer Miracle.
Homemade Nachos
Go to the store and buy:
1 bag of tortilla chips (we like Restaurant Style, personally). You might need more if you are feeding more than 4-5 people. It also depends on if they've had dinner. You'll need to feel this one out yourself.
2 bags of shredded cheese (about 4 cups). This is tricky, because we find that extra sharp cheddar works best--it has the best flavor, it melts well, and it caramelizes nicely into little cheese chips around the edges. However, real sharp cheddar doesn't come in a pre-shredded bag, so we usually buy a 24 ounce block and grate it using the Cuisinart. But that can be a lot of work (especially if you are Cuisinart-less) so really any kind of shredded cheddar/nacho cheese blend will do.
Protein. If you want to go the vegetarian route, a can of refried beans or seasoned beans work great, and they are also delicious and cheap. However, we've found a pound of ground beef cooked, drained and mixed with a packet of taco seasoning is fantastic (although v. salty, which worked well for the people who come to nacho night already drunk). Also: leftover chili. We are steadfastly anti-chicken nachos so you won't see any mention of chicken as a protein from here on out. Chicken is too dry, it doesn't stick to the chips, and it doesn't have any flavor that can soak into the bottom of the pile.
One tomato.
One bunch of scallions.
One jalapeño.
One jar of salsa.
One container of sour cream.
Putting your nachos together:
1) Preheat the oven to 425.
2) Take out a glass baking dish and put a good layer of tortilla chips on the bottom. Cover that layer with most of one of the bags of cheese (or more! Good for you!) . If you're using refried beans, heat them up until they are more liquidy and spoon them on. If you're using seasoned beef, just dump it on in a layer. If you're using chili, beware: if you put on too much chili, the bottom layer is going to turn into chili cheese dip. We're not advocating against chili cheese dip, but these are nachos. Watch out, especially if you're hungry--it's very easy to make nachos that are bigger than your stomachs can handle. Then dump the rest of the bag of cheese onto the protein (this is the sealant).
3) Cover the protein layer with another layer of tortilla chips and the second bag of cheese. It might look like it's going to overflow now, but never fear: the heat of the oven shrinks everything down.
4) Chop the tomato, one or two of the scallions (mostly the green part, a little bit of the white part) and the jalapeño. If you have rubber gloves on hand, use them when you're cutting the jalapeño, because no amount of washing is going to get the hot stuff off, and then when you go to itch your eye (or your butt! eep!) you are in BIG trouble. Let's just say we know from experience.
5) Scatter the veggies over the chips. At this point, if we're not using good cheddar, we grate some good cheddar onto the top of the veggies.
6) Tent a piece of aluminum foil over the top of the baking dish. Make sure it's not touching the cheese. The cheese is precious, and when it melts and you take the aluminum foil off, you don't want most of the precious cheese to come with it.
7) Pop that bad boy in the oven and get out of the kitchen. The temptation right now, especially if you're hungry, is going to be to stand in the kitchen, eating leftover tortilla chips. Bad idea. They won't ruin your appetite for the nachos, because nachos win over a full stomach every time, but you will be even more miserable when you're done. Go drink and talk about how Jordan Catalano really is a douchebag... something you oddly never realized when you were so in love with him back in 1994. But so fucking hot, omg.
8) 20 minutes later, take the aluminum foil off so that the cheese can get just a little brown on top. Offer to refill drinks, but stay away from the chips. Also, refrigerate any of the leftover vegetables that you might use later, because once the nachos and beer are gone you will be so full you cannot even think about the kitchen.
9) 10 minutes later, pull the nachos from the oven. See? They did shrink. Be careful, because they do look delicious, but they are deceptively hot.
10) Enjoy your nacho night!
1 comment:
I'm in Dubai...they have never heard of "tortilla chips", and the vegetables are usually half rotten by the time they get to the market over the sand....I really want to impress the Sheikh with a batch of these...what do you recommend?
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