June 24 – Greek-Style Nachos

Nachos? Really, I have to make nachos? This was my first thought upon seeing this Bittman recipe. But then I started looking at the ingredients and found that it seemed to abide by my basic thinking about nachos as a toppings delivery system. Here were homemade pita chips topped with some nice Greek toppings – ground lamb, yogurt-feta “cheese sauce,” tomatoes, cucumbers, and olives. This was a nacho recipe I could get behind.

None of the ingredients were difficult to find. I decided to get some nice lamb steak and just grind it myself with the food processor, as Bittman has advocated many times in the past. The grinding itself was very easy, but I wasn’t sure how much fat to trim from the cut. In the end, I settled with trimming about half the fat. That seemed like a good call since the meat browned up nicely with just a bit of olive oil in the pan. I made one other small change from the recipe, buying Greek yogurt instead of plain yogurt. I love the rich, tart taste of Greek yogurt when I’m making sauces and dips, and I’m happy that many more grocery stores are regularly carrying it. However, after making the nachose, I should have chosen plain yogurt because it’s not as dense. My cheese sauce had a good flavor but was very goopy and couldn’t be drizzled over the chips. Thus, there were clumps of cheese sauce on some chips and none on the others.



On the other hand, I could keep the Greek yogurt and make this as I now make most nachos – as a layered dip of the toppings with the chips on the side. Or I could do something akin to a pizza by toasting the full pita and spreading on the cheese sauce/dip and then layering the meat and other ingredients on top of that. With either of those preparations there would be a bit of each ingredient in each bite. I enjoyed these nachos but didn’t feel the real combination of flavors until the end, when I was collecting all the scraps on my final few chips…but what tasty scraps they were.

Greek-Style Nachos

4 pita pockets, white or whole wheat, cut into wedges
About 1/2 cup olive oil
Salt
4 ounces feta cheese
1/2 cup yogurt, preferably whole-milk
1/2 cup chopped fresh mint
1 lemon
Freshly ground black pepper
1 medium onion, chopped
1/2 pound ground lamb
1 tablespoon ground cumin
2 or 3 medium ripe tomatoes, chopped
1 medium cucumber, peeled and seeded if necessary, and chopped
1/2 cup calamata olives, pitted and halved

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees Arrange pita wedges in one layer on baking sheets and brush or drizzle with a tablespoon or two of olive oil. Bake until they begin to color, turning once or twice, about 10 minutes. Sprinkle with salt, turn off oven and put chips back in to keep warm.

2. In a blender or food processor, combine feta, yogurt, 1/4 cup olive oil, mint and zest and juice of lemon; sprinkle with salt and pepper. Blend or process until smooth. (You can also mash mixture by hand, with a fork.)

3. Put two tablespoons of oil in a skillet over medium-high heat and cook onions until soft, about 5 minutes. Add lamb and cumin and sprinkle with salt and pepper; continue cooking until meat is cooked through, about 5 to 10 minutes more. Put chips on a serving plate and top with lamb, sauce, tomatoes, cucumbers and olives if you're using them.