How can you possibly prepare for the coming of Super Bowl 50? If you're like the editors at Epicurious and Bon Appétit, you express your feelings in melted-cheese form. This year, Epi and BA teams embarked on a 50-ingredient nacho battle. To the death. Or at least, until one of the teams keeled over due to coronary blockage. Here's how we made our play for #nachobowl50; click here for Epi saga.
Here at Bon Appétit we take our nachos seriously. Very seriously. So when the team at Epicurious challenged us to a 50-ingredient nacho throwdown, we were up for it. Then we were all, "Oh, shit, now we have to make a pan of nachos with 50 ingredients." Luckily, Rick Martinez, BA's associate food editor, was game. "My strategy was, 'If it's good in a taco, it'll be great in nachos,'" he says.
There were 12 distinct "tacos" in Martinez's nachos. From bottom to top, here are the 50 ingredients:
•Chili Colorado: queso fresco, pinto beans borrachados, epazote, pickled onion, toasted sesame seeds
•Chicken and salsa verde
•Smoked brisket: barbecue sauce, pickled jalapeños, pepperjack cheese
•Beef fajitas: grilled green and red peppers, grilled onions, grilled shrimp, grilled corn, grilled zucchini
•Crumbled chorizo and black beans
•Smoked kielbasa: dried chile salsa, toasted hominy, chile con queso
•Picadillo (ground beef): fresh tomato salsa, guacamole
•Buffalo pulled turkey
•Tacos al Pastor: crema, sliced scallions, grilled pineapple salsa, chipotle bacon
•Carnitas: fried shishito peppers, culantro (a Mexican herb similar in taste to cilantro)
•The 7-11 Run: beef jerky, Cheddar melted on tostadas, crushed corn nuts, Cholula, pork rinds, pickled carrots, radishes, cotija, Mexican oregano, black olives, crushed chile de árbol, cilantro
For his masterpiece, Martinez used a mix of pepper jack, cheddar, American, as well as cotija and queso fresco for their fresh, slightly salty qualities.
Epi and BA agreed to 54 ounces as the maximum chip weight—and yep, they were weighed separately before assembly. That meant Martinez had to find chips with the right amount of structure without being too heavy. (Too thick and you'd lose quantity of chips. Too thin and they'd crack under the pressure). His picks? Tostito's Natural Yellow Corn Tortillas and Garden of Eatin' Blue Corn Tortillas.
For the "7-11" layer, Martinez tasted six (yep) different styles of jerky before finally settling on Chef's Cut Chipotle Cracked Pepper, a tender, not-too-chewy jerky.
That's right: 36 hours. Between braising brisket, grilling kielbasa, barbecuing turkey, roasting pork… yeah, you get the picture.
Martinez sourced his ingredients from four different locations. Much of them came from Manhattan, but he traveled to Brooklyn for the cheeses and Queens for the herbs. "Culantro is impossible to find in Manhattan, but step off the train in Corona, and it's right there at a street vendor for $1.39 a bunch," he says. A Texas native, Martinez traveled all the way to his home state for dried chiles. (Okay, he was already going there for the Christmas holiday, but still. Dedication).
After hours spent chopping, cooking, braising, seasoning, toasting, grating, and pickling, Martinez packed all of his ingredients into clearly-labeled plastic pint and quart jars and organized them by layer. There were so many containers that they took up 8 full-sized sheet trays.
Martinez had fully cooked all of the meat items in advance, but they had to be reheated on the big day. Five ovens were required for the task.
Over two hours were spent painstakingly stacking and organizing the nacho masterpiece. He had the help of a staffer who ferried reheated ingredients to his station.
The most expensive ingredient on Martinez's ingredient list? A brisket that clocked in at right around $100.
While the nachos originally weighed in at 67 pounds, says Martinez: "There were a couple of avalanches." The official weight was marked as 66 pounds.
Heck yes, we measured it.
So there you have it: The most epic nachos you've ever laid eyes on. Want to make a massive platter yourself? Follow these guidelines—and don't forget the extra bags of chips!
So, our nachos are totally awesome, right? Vote for #TeamBA on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram (or, you can totally vote for #TeamEpi too).
Not all of us can be quarterbacks. Right this way for more cooking inspiration for the real MVPs