We serve Pulled Pork Nachos in our restaurant, but serving a dish for business requires numbers and logistics that almost always result in a recipe with constraints. The joy in home cooking is having to do whatever that comes to mind, blow up your budget of heaps of preferred ingredients without concerning yourself with customer dissatisfaction. I am most creative when I know I have the freedom of doing what I want exactly as I want it. It's this sort of planned out spontaneity as the recipe can change last minute because something pops in your head as you are making the dish...or in the case of the hero photo above, it's because several other people were involved in the preparation that by the time I saw the final plate there were bread sticks and thyme twigs scattered on my nachos!
I can distinctly remember that scene wherein I asked my friend to arrange the nacho on the serving plate because I was still busy doing another dish for the party. I instructed her to start with the nacho chips on the bottom followed by the slaw, then the meat, then the salsa, topped off with onion and chives sour cream sauce and melted cheese. I have given her the liberty to just play with the layer of ingredients that I had individually prepared beforehand. And as I was making the pasta she came to me and whispered, "Look at what your brother added on the nachos." I turned to see and rolled my eyes when I saw random stuff on it like bread sticks and sprigs of thyme. You see, my brother's concept of cooking is that as long as it looks good it'll taste good...even if it means feeding you raw chicken with beautifully chopped up grass.
Personally, what excites me most with nachos is that crunch and mix of vegetables that comes with it. I don't need heaps of meat or sauce on my nachos. The satisfaction comes with its clean aftertaste because of the salad that balances out the heaviness of the seasoned meat. I mean, if you take in too much cumin from the meat, your breath is gonna start smelling like sweaty pits sooner than you think. And one of the most important factor is also selecting the proper nacho chips that will be the vessel of all other ingredients in the dish. Get an overly powerful seasoned chips and your nacho is gonna taste like corn dust served on an armpit.
And like the usual, I don't do precision cooking, just calculated estimates. It all falls down to preference. If you want more meat or chips or veggies, just adjust stuff accordingly...don't make me do the math.
*Nacho chips (If possible, get the lightly seasoned and thin ones)
*Meat-Part-of-the-Nachos:
Bacon Fat (We just used the excess oil because I ate bacon that day)
Butter
Ground Beef saute in
Chopped White Onions
Chopped Garlic
Taco Seasoning (The ingredient list includes: chili powder, garlic powder, cumin powder, onion powder, oregano powder, paprika, salt, black pepper)
Crushed Tomatoes
Red Kidney Beans
Pickled Jalapeño sliced
*Salsa:
Diced Red Ripe Tomatoes
Diced Green Not-So-Ripe Tomatoes
Diced White Onion
Diced Red Onion
Chopped Cucumber
Chopped Coriander
Chopped Cilantro
Chopped Chives
Salt
Lemon Zest
Fresh Lime Juice (Make sure not to overdo it, just a hint of acid)
*Salad Slaw
Purple Cabbage
Green Cabbage
Iceberg Lettuce
*Sauce
Sour Cream blended with chives (I don't know, I just bought the onion and chives dip at Tater's...my fave dip BTW. You can either make use onion or garlic flavor for your sour cream. In our resto we use garlic sauce.)
Cheese Sauce (I also bought from the supermarket but the taste sucked so probably be careful when selecting a brand. Or make your own...just make a roux, add milk, stir in cheddar, salt and cumin)
Basically you just prepare all of the layers individually, then stack them up beautifully with bread sticks for all I care, just make sure not to do it too early for the party else the salad won't be as crispy and the chips soggy from soaking up all the moisture. But the salsa though should be prepared a couple of hours in advance for the flavors to marry by the time you serve them.
Nachos are a perfect party dish because everyone gets to be stuffed that they don't realize you haven't served the main dish. I made the nachos for my brother's 36th birthday party because I didn't feel like cooking a meticulous main dish. And as seen on the table all we served were the nachos, a pasta dish, sliced sausages, lots of cake that our guests brought, and lots of drinks. There were a total of 15 mouths we fed that day, and we even had a lot of extra food at the end of the night. The secret is that you ask your guests to help you prepare the dishes, because they were eating what they were preparing that by the time the party started all they got were sampler sizes of other dishes. Less work for you, and the party is more enjoyable this way, seeing your guests toil with you in the kitchen. It's a win-win situation.
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