Nachos

Man is like pepper — you only know him when you’ve ground him.
~ Nigerian Proverb

I’ve never paid much attention to Mexican food. Maybe it’s because the names are so hard to remember and pronounce — or maybe there are too many syllables to those Mexican names! Maybe too, it’s because that I don’t really care much about dishes with beans. Beans makes the guys at home fart a lot!

I learn a little bit about Mexican food the past week when the Richmond Cooking Club featured simple Mexican food — salsa, guacomole, tortilla, enchiladas and nachos. This piqued my interests now on Mexican food and will try to learn more about it.

Today, I am going to blog on a very simple snack which I believe is a favourite with almost everyone. Nanchos in its simplest form is tortilla chips covered in melted cheese. You can add additional toppings such as salsa, sour cream, olives, jalapeno and what nots.

Here is an interesting story I found out about Nachos in Wikipedia:

Nachos were created in Coahuila, Mexico by Ignacio “Nacho” Anaya in 1943. The story goes that the wives of American airmen came to his restaurant after the kitchen had closed. Anaya quickly prepared the dish and later added it to his menu. The term “nachos” came from Anaya’s original name for the dish, which was “Nacho’s Especiales,” or “Nacho’s Special Dish.” Nacho Anaya’s original nachos consisted of fried tortilla chips covered with melted cheese and jalapeño peppers.

Ingredients

• A bag of Tostitos tortilla chips
• Shredded cheese
• A bottle of salsa, we prefer the hot and chunky type
• Pickle pepper, optional

Instructions

Line a baking pan with parchment paper for easy clean up. This is to prevent the melted cheese and salsa from sticking to the bottom of the pan. Then layer the baking pan with tortilla chips and sprinkle the salsa on top of the chips.

On top of that, sprinkle generous amount of shredded cheese. You should use a mix of cheddar, mozzarella and Monterey Jack cheeses.

For additional kick, you can add on some pickled peppers or jalapeno peppers.

Preheat a toaster oven to 250 Celcius. You may use the regular oven but for such a small snack dish, I prefer to use the toaster oven which requires less time to preheat and it generates less heat in the kitchen. The nachos has to be baked for 15 minutes or until the cheese melted.

Simple and quick.  Arkensen has been eating a lot of these the past few days!

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