Beef Nachos Supreme

Tortilla chips baked under seasoned beef and melted cheese, finished with raw onion, bell pepper and avocado. It is Tex-Mex and American, and it has an origin story that is unusually well documented for a snack food. In 1943, wives of American soldiers stationed at Fort Duncan in Eagle Pass, Texas, crossed into Piedras Negras, Mexico, on a shopping trip. They stopped at the Victory Club to eat and found the restaurant closed for the day. The maître d', Ignacio "El Nacho" Anaya, made something from what was left in the kitchen: tortillas, cheese and pickled jalapeños. The dish took his nickname. It sits in Worldwide Recipes under American, since nachos belong to Mexican, Tex-Mex and American cooking rather than to anything African. This particular version puts soy sauce in the beef seasoning, which is not conventional and points to a contemporary cook rather than a tradition. Africa's own layered snack dishes are different things: Nigerian gizdodo, South African bunny chow, Egyptian koshari. The technique worth knowing here is that the beef is seasoned and cooked before it goes on the chips, so the assembly only needs long enough to melt the cheese.