Binging with Babish: Nachos from The Good Place (plus Naco Redemption)

nachos number one easy really yeah I mean salty crunchy cheesy a little bit of a kick name one better thing humans have created the Sistine Chapel paint on a ceiling I mean it's fine but can you eat it at the movies Touche I'll see you later do you want those nothing yeah I do thank you hey what's up guys welcome back to binging with babish where this week I'm freshly back from my book tour and I'm pretty fried so I need something a little easier so you can imagine my delight when I tuned in to the new season of the good place and saw a gigantic plate of nachos loaded for bear and since tomorrow is national nacho day I was more than excited to test out a litany of options for homemade tortilla chips because we're gonna need an especially robust chip to stand up to all those toppings once I identified mas en to bodega as my preferred brand of corn tortilla all that was left to do was cut dry and fry that is cut into tortilla chip shapes dry in a low oven talking 200 degrees for about 10 minutes flipping halfway through for maximum dryness or just let them sit out overnight until they are thoroughly stale and stale is exactly the texture that we're looking for a little pliable to the finger but firm to the tap to terms I've just made up but you know what I mean anyway once we've got all of our pre chips nicely dried out it's time to fry I'm going to do so in about one gallon of canola oil yes that's a lot of oil but I have a lot of chips to make and since tortillas have very little sediments or flavor it's gonna make this oil very reusable so anyway into the oil they go at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for one to two minutes until they're just shy of what you think is done as they're going to continue to darken after cooking season with a little bit of kosher salt while they're still hot and rinse and repeat with the remaining tortillas draining on paper towel lined baking sheets until they're all done and fried but babby you asked with a cocksure grin is this really worth all the time and effort well for nachos I think it is let us conduct a structural integrity test on my left ear right we have a garden of eatin corn tortilla chip one of the most robust on the market and on my right your left we have the homemade corn tortilla chip into some tepid tap water they go for let's say two minutes the is of course more exaggerated moisture conditions than the average nacho chip is asked to endure but it should be a good indication of how they stand up under cheese pressure and as you can see the store-bought ship isn't soggy but it's not crisp either our homemade chip on the other hand well it's practically still nacho ready even after a soak in the tub so now that we've got our foundation laid let's build us a house very visible atop the pile of nachos and the good place is guacamole so into a medium bowl goes the flesh of three small ripe avocados a clove of crushed garlic half a small minced red onion the juice of one lime a teaspoon of toasted and freshly ground cumin a healthy pinch of kosher salt a few twists of freshly ground black pepper and half a finely chopped jalapeno and that's all there is to it nothing else goes in guacamole nothing in the world fine cilantro maybe 2 finely chopped tablespoons worth of the soapy green stuff mashed together with a fork until relatively smooth I like my guacamole chunky but the stuff that Sheedy and Elinor were eating looked pretty deep chunked of course taste for seasoning and stop if you've reached the 80s fist pump of triumph scrape down the sides of the bowl no guacamole must go to waste and cover with plastic wrap making sure to press it down directly onto the surface of the guac this will prevent it from browning as its fridge until we're ready to use it now on to something clearly visible on the plate pickled jalapenos the jarred ones are fine but sometimes they can be a little mushy and after having tried some lightly sweetened pickled jalapenos and Dallas this past week I am determined to put them on my nachos so I'm gonna take about eight sizeable jalapenos and cut them into nice thick slices and then prepare a quick pickling brine into a medium saucepan goes two cups of plain white vinegar 2 cups of water 4 smash cloves of garlic which are gonna do something weird later on I'll show you some kosher salt maybe a 1/2 whoo 3 the 3 tablespoons of kosher salt and a quarter cup of plain white sugar then we're gonna bring that whole mixture to a boil over medium-high heat maybe give it a little tiny whisking to make sure all the sugar and salt is dissolved and then we're gonna bring our sliced jalapenos to the party that we're gonna kill the heat to give them a little stir and check out what happened to our garlic it does turn blue apparently this is some kind of chemistry thing involving amino acids it's perfectly safe so don't worry about it I am sure there's someone smarter than me and the comments will explain and now we're just gonna set our quick pickled jalapenos aside just enough time to make some taco beef taco beef starts the same way did when you were kid with a pound of ground beef browned in a saute pan until it's got some nice color and it's barely pink in the center at which point I'm gonna let the fat cool on one side of the pan dump half a small finely chopped onion in the fat and sweat it for about two minutes before tossing with the beef and seasoning first the basis for any taco seasoning is a ton of chili powder in this case about a tablespoon and a half then a half teaspoon each of ground cumin ground coriander ground garlic dried oregano and maybe a quarter teaspoon of cayenne pepper you are after all the Chef John of whatever's going on anyway we're just gonna let those spices toast for about one minute before adding 1/2 cup of chicken stock seasoning generously with kosher salt and freshly ground pepper tasting for seasoning and letting the whole thing reduce for another two to three minutes until it's nice and that can taco me like set that aside because next up we are contending with our cheese of which we're going to need a lot so you probably want to get the biggest bowl you have Mouse I am hence reading 2 pounds each of sharp cheddar and pepper jack make sure that you are not using any pre-shredded cheese which are often coated in anti-caking agents which will prevent maximum melt äj-- now you will notice that I'm making a roux so that means that queso must be on the way into a large sauce pan goes 2 tablespoons of butter to which we're gonna add 2 tablespoons of flour once it gets all nice and foamy we're then going to whisk and cook those together for about one minute before slowly streaming in one to one-and-a-half cups of milk make sure that your milk is cold as this will prevent lumps once the bechamel has cooked for about two minutes and it's nice and thick we're gonna add 8 ounces of sharp cheddar whisking constantly until melted and adding half a drain can of Rotel tomatoes and chilies which will give our queso some nice color and some nice kick season generously with kosher salt make sure everybody's good melted and smooth and of course the former chip taste test for safety now at long last it is time to assemble our nachos I was worried that I hadn't made enough chips so I started with a layer of store-bought sorry especially because it turned out that I did make enough chips but anyway on to our first layer of chips goes a generous sprinkling of cheese a slightly more cautious sprinkling of taco beef an unrestrained drizzle of our queso oh yes starting to think this is gonna come out good on the show it looked like there was a smattering of black beans not my favorite but I could also see chopped white onion and chopped tomato followed by maybe my single favorite thing in the world these homemade quick pickled jalapenos and finally here comes the Calvary the real chips welcome to the world of food styling folks and then all we have to do is repeat one two whoo a three three three times I'm quoting that old tootsie roll commercial with the owl you're probably too young anyway this might seem like overkill but we are talking about the good place here and if I were some girl from Arizona who had died in a tragic shopping cart margarita mix accident this is the plate of nachos that I would want to see in paradise top it with a final pickled layer of jalapenos and we replace it on a rimmed baking sheet in a futile effort to prevent a mess in the oven which has been set to 300 degrees Fahrenheit a little low but this way we can bake it for 20 minutes and ensure that it is melty and heated all the way through now for the all-important taste test and I just don't think nachos are nachos without both queso and shredded cheese I mean once gooey ones chewy and both are topped with flavorful beef spicy briny jalapenos fresh vegetables and to my chagrin gigantic piles of guacamole and sour cream don't get me wrong I think that these are nacho essentials I just think that they should be served separately so you can control your guacamole and sour cream distribution with greater accuracy as you can see I'm putting together a chip here with a little bit of everything a very important litmus test in the success of nachos and it passes with flying colors these are the best nachos I've ever had in my life and now while they are devoured by some stoned friends in the other room I have a score to settle with myself you see this time about a year ago I took a crack at the NACO from Kim Possible and as was very fairly pointed out to me by almost every commenter I failed miserably so since tomorrow is national nacho day and I've still got my nacho making pants on I thought I'd take a quick crack at redemption the first thing to address is the bright yellow cheese sauce so to make that movie theater style nacho goo I am combining 8 ounces of shredded sharp cheddar with 1 tablespoon of cornstarch putting in a small saucepan along with 1 cup of evaporated milk and half a cup of pickled jalapeno brine homemade or store-bought i'ma stir this constantly over medium heat until the cheese melts and it starts resembling nacho cheese it's gonna look a little lumpy at first but just keep going eventually everything will emulsify and smooth out we'll be left with nothing but a gorgeously smooth nacho cheese sauce however this stuff coagulates pretty quickly so we got to move fast Ron stoppable x' creation appears to be little more than a few chips maybe smaller than the ones I've got so I'll break them up a little bit in the form of beef nachos placed into a large tortilla so I'm gonna top those chips with some of our cheese sauce some of our taco beef from earlier and what the hell why not some more cheese sauce nothing looked like it was Dripping pretty disgustingly and so there you have it hopefully a more accurate recreation of the nacho whose taste we can finally experience firsthand and folks I got to tell you it tastes like some beef nachos wrapped in a tortilla so you know delicious and disgusting and awesome and terrible just like most great innovations I'm all right [Music] [Music]

Channel: Babish Culinary Universe

Views: 11,439,063

Rating: 4.9550695 out of 5

Keywords: nachos, how to make nachos, ultimate nachos, loaded nachos, nacho recipe, nachos recipe, nacho recipes, the good place, elanor shellstrop, chidi anagonye, cheese, melty, queso, pickled jalapenos, quick pickled, national nacho day, naco, taco, nacho cheese, cheese sauce, kim possible, jalapenos, homemade chips, how to make tortilla chips, how to make chips, pear qwerty horse, binging with babish, cooking with babish, babbish

Id: LgzudBvmd08

Length: 10min 15sec (615 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 05 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/Quote_the_Ravenclaw]

I'm quoting that old tootsie roll commercial, the owl. You're probably too young.

Cries in old age and back pain

[u/Josephalopod]

Warning for anyone who makes these: make sure your guests know that it is extremely rude to take all the fully-loaded bits and leave others with like, just chips with maybe a little cheese or tiny nugget of meat.

[u/Brotherauron]

Here's my bingo card, sadly no Babby bingo! :(

/u/fathertom69

https://i.imgur.com/XrHsEkk.jpg

[u/LouBrown]

That tootsie pop owl impression was spot-on.

[u/PrinceofRavens]

Those nachos look bomb and the Naco revisited was just icing on the cake! Definitely gonna start making tortilla chips at home!

[u/[deleted]]

Those jalapeños look amazing

[u/Gopher2K16]

This is one of the fastest episode to recipe turnarounds he’s ever done. Props!

[u/selloboy]

u/oliverbabish how often do your friends come over to your house to get high and eat the food you make for your show?

[u/PM_THE_GUY_BELOW_ME]

I'd like to think that tiny whisk and this episode's massive dutch oven are friends