I'm a bit of a novice at the Fully Loaded Nachos game, however I do love them! This evening's version was so good, its recipe definitely requires blogging. Well, I say "recipe" but in truth it's more of an assembly job than a recipe!
Along with the luscious goodies that are included in this turkey version, I also contemplated adding things like beans - red kidney or cannelini - sweet corn, fresh coriander, avocado and sliced red chilis. All the kinds of things that you might find in a Mexican dish. While I can see all of those things working, I'm glad I didn't add everything because it would have been far too much - so hark to my word of caution that Fully Loaded, whilst encouraging heaps of ingredients, can easily become too much to eat! As it is, these nachos came in at around 725 calories per portion which required some jiggery pokery of the other meals, in order to fit it in without exceeding my daily calorie limit!
Anyway, the best thing about this meal is that you can include or exclude whatever you like. So long as there are nacho chips and cheese, whatever else you add is entirely up to you. My recommendation is that you use this recipe as help regarding how you make the dish, but free wheel about what you include.
Oh and it's worth knowing that these are like iron filings to a magnet for teenagers. They just can't resist! :D
FULLY LOADED (TURKEY) NACHOS (serves 2)
Ingredients :
1 tbsp rapeseed oil
1 small red onion, chopped finely
half a bell pepper (any colour), diced
250g turkey mince
a pinch of sea salt
a pinch of freshly ground black pepper
sufficient barbecue sauce to coat
half a tsp of hot smoked paprika
150g or thereabouts, of nacho chips
100g of grated cheddar cheese
100g of grated Mexicana cheese
2 small tomatoes, sliced finely
sliced jalapeno peppers, to taste
100g approx of tomato salsa
150ml of sour cream
2 spring onions, finely sliced on the diagonal
crispy fried onion bits (optional)
fresh lime wedges.
Method :
Pre-heat your oven to 180degC/350degF/Gas 4.
Heat the rapeseed oil in a frying pan and add the onion, bell pepper pieces, salt & black pepper. Cook over a moderate heat until the onion is softened and the bell pepper has begun to soften. Move the vegetables to one side, increase the heat to high and add the turkey mince. Fry until the mince has changed colour by 90% and stir in the vegetables. Continue to fry until all the liquid has gone and the mince mixture is beginning to caramelise.
Reduce the heat to moderate and add the barbecue sauce & smoked paprika. Stir everything together and cook until you have a fairly dry mix, which should only take a few moments.
Remove from the heat and set aside.
Take two baking trays and cover each with a sheet of baking paper.
Arrange a handful of nacho chips in the centre of each sheet, in a relatively flat layer. This is the "plate" upon which the dish will be built - so don't take it too broad or you'll use too many chips, or too high or you won't fit the end result in the oven!
Next, sprinkle on a quarter of the cheese onto each bed of chips.
Then, heap on a quarter of the mince mixture onto each bed of cheesy chips.
Arrange the tomato and jalapeno slices across the mince mixture.
Dollop on the salsa, dividing between the two batches of chips.
Take another handful of chips and heap them on top of everything, on both trays.
Add the remaining quarters of the mince mixture, balancing it on top of the piles.
Sprinkle everything liberally with the remaining cheese, again dividing it between the two trays. You can even add more jalapenos at this stage, if you're keen!
Carefully place the two trays into the oven for 10-15 minutes. Keep an eye on them at half time, as you don't want the chips to burn.
When the cheese is melted and the mince is sizzling, remove the trays from the oven and have some warmed plates waiting.
Taking the baking paper, make it into a chute and slide the nachos onto the warmed plate. They should go in one fell swoop, so be brave!
Add dollops of sour cream, sprinkle with the sliced spring onion and crispy onions, if you're using them and add the two wedges of lime, for squeezing at the table.
Prepare to accept the grateful and adoring thanks of the masses.
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I have been hearing a lot about "Orange Chicken" just recently and had been keeping my eye open for a recipe that would suit me. Such a lot of recipes seem to involve coating the chicken pieces in batter and either deep frying them, or frying them in some way, shape or form, before adding the sauce - and I'm just not into that. I'm not averse to colouring the chicken in a frying pan though - ostensibly frying it, but in just a whisper of oil and without the batter.
This week, I found this recipe "Crockpot Orange Chicken" from Heidi's Home Cooking blog and it was so simple that I felt it would stand up to being swiftly cooked in a wok or frying pan (or skillet, depending on where you're from!) as opposed to the slow cooker it was intended for. However, as is my wont, immediately I began thinking about ways of broadening its flavour horizons.
So, step 1 was to make sure the seasoning was on point and as we're using soy sauce there were no worries about the salt. However, pepper wasn't mentioned - and I wound up using both black and white peppers. Black pepper directly on the chicken and the white pepper in the final seasoning of the sauce.
I could also see that some garlic and ginger wouldn't go amiss, however hubby is sensitive to ginger so that was out (but feel free to add some if you're okay with it!) but some finely chopped fresh garlic cooked with the chicken became step 2.
Because of the lack of ginger, it seemed as though some red chili pepper would be a good idea, so step 3 was to add a finely chopped fresh red chili and dried red chili flakes, to taste. This was a lovely addition as it definitely helped to balance out the sweetness from the barbecue sauce and the orange marmalade, although using a dark coloured marmalade also helped in that regard as it was rather more bitter than sweet.
All together, because I had everything prepped and ready to go before I started cooking, the dish only took around 25-30 minutes from start to serve, which was perfect.
Both my menfolk really liked this dish and returned clean plates to the kitchen. Always a satisfaction! The flavours weren't hugely in one way or the other - both the barbecue sauce and the marmalade seemed to be knitted together with the help of the soy sauce and the garlic and chili just helped to make everyone friends. As it was cooked so quickly, the chicken didn't have an opportunity to dry out, staying moist and tender throughout.
I served the chicken with egg fried rice, some prawn crackers and chopped spring onion sprinkled over as garnish, however it occurred to us that it would be fairly epic served similarly to crispy fried duck - in small pancakes with spring onion & cucumber shreds. So I'll leave that aspect up to you, but do let me know how you like it if you try it!
QUICK BARBECUE ORANGE CHICKEN (Serves 3)
Ingredients :
200 ml of a good, tasty barbecue sauce
1 heaped tbsp of a dark orange marmalade
2 tsp cornflour
1 red chili pepper, finely chopped
3 tbsp light soy sauce
a good pinch of white pepper
1 tbsp rapeseed oil
3 skinless, boneless chicken breasts, sliced finely against the grain
a pinch of black pepper
1 large garlic clove, finely chopped
2 spring onions, finely chopped on the diagonal for garnish.
Method :
In a jug, whisk together the barbecue sauce, marmalade, cornflour, chili pepper, soy sauce and white pepper and set aside.
Heat the rapeseed oil in a deep frying pan or wok and add the chicken. Season with the black pepper. Cook over a high heat until all trace of pinkness has gone from the chicken.
Add the chopped garlic and continue to cook for another 1-2 minutes until softened and fragrant, in the residual liquid from the chicken.
Pour in the sauce and stir to combine. Bring the sauce to a boil and allow it to reduce until a sticky glaze consistency has been reached and it is coating the chicken.
Serve, adding a sprinkle of chopped spring onion as garnish, with your choice of additional rice and a few prawn crackers for crunch.
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