Recipe #16: an homage to Nachos Deliciosos

 Here is another homage recipe to the gone-but-not-forgotten favourite restaurant of my youth, Latinos of Guelph, Ontario (see Recipe #6 for more back story on this beloved El Salvadoran restaurant).

One of their appetizers was a dish called Nachos Deliciosos, but it was nothing like any nacho dish I’d had before or have had since.

Rather than the common nacho dish of chips slathered in various toppings and melted cheese (not that there’s anything wrong with that! See a future post for my version), Latinos served their version in a shallow oval ramekin. The ramekin contained their beautiful black beans covered in homemade red salsa and a layer of melted cheese, served with a few homemade tortilla chips poking out of the hot beans-salsa-cheese ramekin like shark fins, and many more crispy chips around the ramekin for dipping. Sour cream was optional. And that was it. So simple, and yet so… deliciosos! 

Ingredients:

Note the leftover basic black beans from Recipe #4. 

Note also I’m mixing two different salsas, one red and one green, and neither is homemade. That’s fine.

Directions:

First things first: let’s make some homemade tortilla chips out of corn tortillas.

Actually, first things first is preheating the oven to 375F. Then second things second, start in on the tortillas.

Cut the round tortillas into quarters and lay on a baking tray without overlapping or touching each other.

Okay, they’re touching each other a bit. That’s fine.

Toss the tray into the preheated oven and maybe set a timer for 10 or 15 minutes.

Third things third, let’s assemble our ramekin. 

Start with a layer of basic black beans:

Add a lesser layer of salsa(s):

And a layer of sharp cheddar cheese. Here I am too lazy to grate my cheese so I’m just adding thin slices and it’s fine!

Now pop the ramekin into the same hot oven that’s got the tortillas crisping in it:

And let everything cook at 375F for 5-10-15 minutes? I’m not exactly sure because I forgot to set a timer and then got distracted re-reading my own blog entries. But when I smelled something fragrant and tasty, I returned to my senses and my oven to see this:

Perfect!

Remove the nacho chips and let them cool down, and flip on the broiler for a few minutes to brown the top of the cheese so it looks like this:

Looks good enough to eat!

Serve as in the photo below:

With some shark fin chips sticking out of the dip, plenty more chips around the ramekin for dipping, and a dollop of sour cream.

Warning: this dish should cool off much longer than you think, or else you will burn the roof of your mouth to high heaven. And that would just spoil everything.