Pulled Pork Cheese Nachos – The Cook’s Digest

We cooked some pulled pork at the weekend, and had leftovers. Yes, I know, leftover pulled pork, how is this possible? Well there’s only two of us (along with three mainecoon cats) and I did cook a lot of pork. I recently saw a recipe for cheesey nachos with leftover smoked brisket, so emulated that … including the crispy bacon bits which, according to my wife, sealed the deal!

Find out how to take the standard nacho snack up a few notches with this simple recipe.

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Smoke Infusion

This dish is made using shredded and chopped pulled pork leftovers. I cooked a pork shoulder (butt) last weekend, smoking it over hickory (see this blog post for details). For the nachos, I smoked them in our Big Green Egg. If you don’t have one, the method below can be used to cook in a conventional oven, just skip the smoking aspect.

Equipment

• Oven proof pan/skillet
• Cheese grater
• Frying pan
• Kitchen scissors

I used a 12 inch Lodge cast iron pan without handles.

Ingredients

• Couple of handfuls of pulled pork
• 400g shredded cheese
• 4 rashers bacon
• 200g nacho/tortilla chips
• BBQ Sauce
• Hickory smoking chunk (optional)

For the shredded cheese, I used 300g mozarella and 100g smoked cheddar. I smoked the cheddar at home using this simple technique. It can also be purchased from supermarkets and cheese mongers.

Choosing the nacho/tortilla chips and BBQ sauce is down to personal taste. I used Marks and Spencer Cool Tortilla chips as they have good crunch, very little salt, and I wanted the flavour of the dish to come from the pulled pork, cheese and BBQ sauce. As for that, I used Bart’s Kansas City style BBQ sauce, it’s got some great flavours.

Method

1. Pre-heat the oven or Big Green Egg (indirect setup) to 170°C/340°F. If cooking in an Egg and using a smoking chunk, once the coals are glowing and the Egg’s temperature is stable, toss on the chunk and wait for the thin blue line of smoke.
2. Whilst the oven/Egg is heating up, fry the bacon until crispy and set aside.
3. Place half of the nachos into the pan. Layer on some cheese, then pulled pork and finally some BBQ sauce.
4. Repeat the step above to create a second layer. Top that layer with chopped crispy bacon.
5. When the oven/egg is at temperature, place the loaded pan inside. Cook for 25-30 mins, until the cheese is melted.
6. Serve with salsa and sour cream sides. A rich Pinotage is a perfect compliment.

Hints, Tips and Pictures

1. If the pulled pork has become dried out prior to cooking this dish, spray it with a 50:50 mixture of water and apple cider vinegar. The latter also imparts some extra flavour.