Recipe Review: Nuked Nachos

Nuked Nachos
Recipe Link: Epicurious

Tortilla chips by Ann Arbor Tortilla Factory
Shredded cheddar cheese by Rosewood Products of Ann Arbor, MI
Bottled salsa
Sour cream
16-ounce can of refried beans by Eden Organics of Clinton, MI
Cilantro
Anything else you want to add!

Preparation
Ah, nothing like a great big plate of nachos to drive down people's opinion of me after last week's relatively refined trout and pecans. But come on! Who doesn't love nachos? Sure, haute cuisine chefs may sneer at them, or, more likely, turn them into some fancy pants dish consisting of three chips, some foie gras, and an heirloom tomato sliced in the shape of a concentric circle. Nuts to that, I say! Nuts! The best nachos are big, cheesy, glommy and greasy with lots of flavor!

So for this week, I picked the charmingly named "Nuked Nachos" off of Epicurious. This is about as simple a recipe for nachos as you can get. In the comments section, some foodies even take exception to the recipe being featured on the site at all, but remember - NUTS. Food should first and foremost taste good and be fancy second, I think.



The featured local product this week are tortilla chips by the Ann Arbor Tortilla Factory. These have something of a cult following in A2, and with good reason. They're delicious! But even more than that, they're authentic. The ingredients of the chips are corn, salt, lime, water and oil. If you look at most other brands of "all-natural" tortilla chips like Garden of Eatin' or Guiltless Gourmet (HATE THAT NAME), they'll be loaded with a bunch of stuff like whey powder and soy extract and stuff. It's all-natural, sure, but it's got no business being in proper tortilla chips! A2 Tortilla Factory chips are crispy, high-calorie goodness with nothing unnecessary. I love 'em and so does everyone else who eats them.



I'm also trying something different in that I'm using raw, unpasteurized cheddar from Rosewood Products. Now, raw milk is a matter of some controversy in many countries. The cheese in my hand in that picture is actually illegal in 22 states, Canada, AND Australia. Whoa, this must be some hardcore cheese, bro. Actually, the debate is about the health risks of eating or drinking unpasteurized milk. The FDA and CDC condemn the practice, citing potentially dangerous diseases found in raw milk. Raw food fans and cheese lovers say that modern food production methods are to blame for today's milk being unsafe, and that if cows are healthy and live in healthy environs then their milk is perfectly safe to consume raw.

Now, I trust the FDA and hippies on the Internet about equally, so I'm not swayed by Web sites proclaiming raw milk more deadly OR more healthy than normal milk. BUT, I reason that there are millions of people in the world who consume raw milk and I don't hear of them dropping dead from it. So I'm giving it ago. If this posting reaches you, then I'm probably still alive.

And hey, if I die from a piece of cheese then at least I'll have a funny story to tell in the afterlife.



But time for the actual preparation! Grab the largest dinner plate you've got and spoon out the refried beans in a circle on the outside of the plate, leaving some space in the middle. That's where our lovely chips will go! I scooped the beans right out of the can and they were a little difficult to spread evenly, so you may want to heat them up first so they're a little smoother.

I'm also using the spicy beans because that's how I roll. Really, what beans you use is your preference. Refried black beans would probably be especially delicious.



Then spoon out your sour cream on top of the bean ring. Bleagh. Add sour cream to the list of foods that taste WAY better than they look.



Then you add the salsa on top of the sour cream for our third layer of nacho hell. The salsa I'm using was fresh out of the jar and warm, so it runs all over the place. Seriously, it looks like I'm making pizza for the DEVIL here. If you want the salsa to stay put, you should probably stick it in the fridge first. Otherwise you just end up with this mess you see here.



So, are we done piling? LORD NO! Grate your cheese and liberally sprinkle it on top of the outer ring of goodies. At this point, all the foodies have fled the room and are miserably gorging themselves on raw, organic truffles. Now it's time to pop this monster in the microwave! Set it on HIGH for two minutes and while you're waiting find a funny YouTube to watch.



I really can't go over how much this resembles a horror pizza. But maybe that's because we're missing the chips!



Goodbye, Mr. Chips. Or in this case, hello! Stack them in the center of the plate and toss the rest of the cheese on top. Now we're talking! Toss the whole mess back in the microwave for about 90 seconds and find another YouTube.



Hey, there they are! Toss on some cilantro for some color and some jalapenos for that extra kick, if you like (I do like!) Despite some of the earlier horror shows in making this dish, the end result looks pretty good!

They taste pretty good, too! But just PRETTY good. They're flavorful and tasty and greasy and enjoyable, but... they're basic. There's nothing here to really make them stand out as an exceptional dish. They're also terribly messy, as nachos tend to be, but the way these are stacked make them especially so. Think nacho Jenga. Maybe I should have used a larger plate.

The best part is actually the cheese, which is gooey and tangy and far more delicious than lethal. The best part of the recipe is the level of improvisation it affords. There are so many varieties of refried beans and salsas and cheeses that the different combinations you could make are virtually limitless. So its not a fancy dish, or even an exceptional one in terms of flavor, but it is fun to make and fun to eat. In the end, that's what food should be to me.

Ratings: Overall dish - 7/10 - Will make again!
Ann Arbor Tortilla Chips - 10/10 - Perfect! No other chip comes close.
Raw Milk Cheddar - 8/10 - Tangy, tasty, nonfatal cheese!