Breakfast Nachos

Everyone likes breakfast for dinner, but did you know if you binge drink hard enough through a Friendsgiving weekend, you can have happy hour for brunch! When the usual hangover cure of bacon, eggs, and sausage might not placate the masses quick enough, dire situations like these put ingenuity to the test.

With mimosas and Irish coffee poured up, the first hour in the morning IS Happy Hour and what’s a better appetizer than nachos. Thus breakfast nachos were born; all the delicious freshness of berries and cream with the brilliant convenience of a nacho-style distribution model.

Ingredients:

• Chips

  • 1 pk Flour tortillas

  • 1 qt. Fry oil (canola, corn, or vegetable)

  • ⅓ cup Granulated sugar

  • ½ Tbsp. Ground cinnamon 

• Berry “Pico de Gallo”

  • 1 pk Strawberries

  • 1 pk Raspberries

  • 1 pk Blackberries

  • 1 pk Blueberries

  • Lemon (or lemon juice)

  • Mint

  • Heavy pinch Sugar

  • Light pinch salt

• Cream Topping

  • 1 pint. Chilled heavy whipping cream

  • 1 tsp. Vanilla extract

  • 2 Tbsp. sugar 

First, fill your fry pot about halfway with fry oil and heat to about 350℉. No thermometer, use the chopstick test; stick a wooden chopstick in the hot oil, when the wood gently simmers then the oil is up to temp and ready to go. If it bubbles too aggressively, turn the temp down. Line a bowl or basket with paper towels to help soak excess oil from fried chips.

Cut up your tortillas into chips. I prefer a triangle cut so I can usually get six to eight equal sized chips per tortilla, but some like their chips in strips. Shape doesn’t matter, but you want your chip to have the structural integrity to carry heaps of berries and cream. Before you toss your chips in the frier, make sure none of them are stuck together; single ply or die. 

Evenly disperse a handful of chips at a time in the fry oil. Be careful not to over crowd the pot. Batching them out also helps you hone your cook timing. Let them simmer in the frier for 5-10mins, gently stir so each chip has the chance to be completely submerged. When the oil stops bubbling aggressively and the chips turn a light brown-gold color, fish them out with a slotted spoon or spider strainer and place in the bowl with the paper towels. Lightly dust with cinnamon sugar. Repeat and let chips cool. 

While chips are cooling, make the berry salsa by dicing strawberries and raspberries, halving blueberries and lemon (for juicing), and muddling rough-chopped mint with half the pack of blackberries in a medium bowl. Add the rest of the berries to the macerated mixture, sprinkle a generous pinch of sugar over the berry blend. Use just the slightest pinch of salt, not for taste but to break down the berries cells so they express more juice and flavor. Juice lemon, add to the mix and gently stir so all ingredients are evenly dispersed through the salsa. Cover and let chill; like lime juice in salsa, a little bit of time will help fully express and concentrate the flavors of the fresh fruits.

Whipped cream tends to be a little easier if you start with the bowl and cream chilled. Whisk heavy cream, sugar, and vanilla in a large bowl. Whip it up until you start to see those stiff peaks. Whip cream is all about aeration, so it just takes several minutes of repetitive motion until you see the transformation. 

Variations: This recipe, at the time, was almost completely ad libbed from the ingredients available at a friend’s house in Los Angeles so it’s inherently pretty flexible. I’d like to try different variations of this breakfast or dessert nachos: like using different fruit medleys like mango, papaya, dragon fruit for something more tropical; adding mascarpone to the whipped cream; or using different chips like wontons or fried plantains. The possibilities are endless, but if one thing’s for sure it’s that this was my most ingenuitive, and most well-received culinary improv.