Jay D's Bites: Sweet Potato Pulled Pork Nachos

by Aimee Tortorich

I have never met a person that doesn’t love nachos. They are fun to eat, easy to share and can be created using different proteins and toppings. I wanted to do a little spin on a typical nacho plate that you would order at a restaurant, so I came up with this recipe. Sweet potato chips and pulled pork loaded with colorful and delicious toppings was a hit at the Bite and Booze headquarters and is sure to be a hit amongst your friends as well.

Sweet Potato Nachos with Pulled Pork 

Sweet Potato Pulled Pork Nachos

2 large sweet potatoes, thinly sliced on a mandolin

1 ½ cups Jay D’s Triple Threat pulled pork
1 cup of canned black beans, rinsed
1 avocado, sliced
1 cup Monterey jack cheese
½ cup sour cream
2 green jalapenos, thinly sliced
Oil for frying
Jay D’s Spicy & Sweet Rub for seasoning chips

Heat a deep fryer to 300 F. Working in batches drop about 10 sweet potato chips at a time (depending on the size of your fryer and parcook for 1-2 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack and let drain. Set heat to 350F. Working again in batches, drop par-cooked chips into oil for about 1-2 minutes or until edges start to brown. Immediately remove from oil into a mixing bowl or on a paper towel lined rack and season with Jay D’s Spicy & Sweet Rub.

To assemble nachos:

Layer sweet potato chips with Monterey Jack Cheese, black beans, and pork. Broil until cheese melts. Top with avocado, sour cream, jalapenos, and a drizzle of Jay D’s Louisiana Barbecue Sauce.

Barbecue Bites: Crawfish Nachos

Peanut butter and jelly. Macaroni and cheese. Cookies and milk.

What's missing from these classic combos? 

Nachos and crawfish, duh.

Crawfish Nachos

This recipe by Chef Eusebio Gongora combines two of our favorite things, crawfish tails and nachos. With high quality, local ingredients from Indie Plate, and Jay D's Louisiana Barbecue Sauce, of course, this recipe makes for a perfect appetizer. Pair with a cocktail, a glass of wine, or a beer and enjoy!

Check out more delicious dishes made with Jay D's Louisiana Barbecue Sauce online. You can purchase a bottle of sauce here.

Crawfish Nachos

1 lb crawfish, cooked from favorite boil

1 bag Tortilla chips

BBQ Queso (see recipe below)

½ cup red onions, diced

¼ cup jalapeños, diced

1 cup tomatoes, diced

2 tbsp Lime juice

¼ cup cilantro

Sour cream (optional)

Place one layer of chips on a serving tray. Ladle half of the queso over the chips and place more chips over the queso. Top the second layer of chips with more queso and scatter the crawfish tails around the nachos. In small mixing bowl combine the tomatoes, onions, jalapeños, cilantro, and lime juice. Top the nachos with the vegetable mixture and sour cream if desired.

BBQ Queso

2 onions, julienned

2 jalapeños, minced

2 tbsp roasted garlic

½ stick butter

¼ cup flour

1 cup Jay D’s Louisiana Barbecue Sauce

2 cups milk

2 cups heavy whipping cream

2 cups cheddar cheese

Heat a medium-large pot on medium high heat, add the butter and allow it to melt. Add onions and jalapeños to cook for 3-4 minutes until the onions become translucent. Add the flour and cook for 1 minute stirring constantly. Add in BBQ sauce and roasted garlic and cook for an additional 1-2 minutes. Whisk in the milk and cream and allow the mixture come up to a simmer. Add the cheddar cheese 1/2 cup at a time, whisking continuously. Whisk until all the cheese has melted completely into the sauce.

Alabama's White Sand Beaches: Part I

For my birthday weekend I received an invitation to enjoy the white sand beaches of the Alabama Gulf Coast and to check out the restaurant scene around Gulf Shores and Orange Beach.  Eric and I made the relatively short drive from Baton Rouge to the beach where we checked into the Phoenix All-Suites West.  The view from our 7th floor room let us know there was no oil in sight as the beaches and water looked as pleasant as ever!

White Sand Beaches of Gulf Shores, Alabama

After throwing our luggage down in the hotel room we ventured over to Orange Beach and to our first feasting destination, Live Bait at the Wharf.  We were there as part of the Mamas4Mamas Tweetup, an event to raise money and awareness for the sea turtles that lay their eggs on the Alabama shores.  Eric and I randomly ran into an old friend, Julie Laperouse, who happened to be asking for a table right when we walked in.  Good times!  After checking in at the Tweetup, we grabbed a few Pick Axe Pale Ales from the Tommyknocker Brewery and met the rest of our blogger crowd.

Ericka, Jay, and Shannon at Live Bait at the Wharf on their birthday!

Live Bait at the Wharf served up some grub for all the bloggers to sample.  We started with the Greek seafood nachos and blackened gator bites.  While the gator failed to live up to what we're accustomed to in Louisiana, the Greek seafood nachos were fully loaded and quite good.  They had shrimp and crawfish tails piled up on fried wantons with red onion, olives, banana peppers, tomatoes, scallions, and a creamy spinach cheese sauce.  Interesting, and quite delicious!

Greek Seafood Nachos at Live Bait

Once we sat down at the dinner table we ordered up a couple other appetizers.  This time we selected the fried calamari and baked oysters.  The calamari had a nice golden brown color and tasted about average for a fried calamari.  The oysters were also satisfactory, though they didn't have the size of the oysters we get in Louisiana.  Still, they were topped with garlic, Worcestershire sauce, andouille sausage, Italian bread crumbs, and Parmesan cheese, so they most definitely were not bad!

Fried Calamari with Firecracker Sauce

Baked Oysters

I went with the off-menu Chef's Special for my main course.  The Pecan-Crusted Flounder came with a Franjelico-butter cream sauce, mushroom rice, and steamed vegetables.  The rice reminded me of something a college kid would make when desperate in a dorm room.  Unfortunately, it was barely better than pure rubbish.  The vegetables were little more than filler.  They were steamed and lacked anything other than some nutritional value.  The fish, however, came through in the clutch.  The flounder had a nice flaky flesh and the pecan crusting satisfied my appetite.  Combined with the delightful butter sauce, the entrée saved the evening and my dining experience at Live Bait with its crusty exterior and flavorful flounder.

Pecan Crusted Flounder with Parmesan-Mushroom Rice and Steamed Veggies

The meal concluded with some cake that April and Lori organized for the birthday group.  It capped off a great night of meeting some new people, randomly running into an old friend, drinking a new beer, and eating some all around decent food.  The first night in Alabama had gone well, and I eagerly anticipated the full schedule we had lined up for Saturday!  More about that on Part II of Alabama's White Sand Beaches.

Erika, Shannon, and I's Birthday/Tweetup Cake!

Things To Do
Orange Beach

Things To Do
Gulf Shores

A Sunday to Remember... if only I actually could.

Sunday was quite an adventure on many levels.  It began with great gathering at Granny's house with lots of family and friends.  She treated us to her famous Pecan Rolls which never disappoint.  Eusebio was able to come with me to the breakfast and had his first taste of the morning treat.  The dough is homemade, spread thin, layered with pecans and cinnamon, then rolled up, sliced, and baked to perfection.  It is a true breakfast of champions that only a Granny can create.

After breakfast at Granny's and story time with the family and friends, Eusebio and I made our way to New Orleans to join Brandon Brown for a day in the Big Easy to watch the Saints play the Jets.  After arriving at Reverend's apartment we quickly made our way to The Bulldog on Magazine Street to grab a table before the crowd showed up.  We started with a pitcher of Abita Andygator, some King's Nachos, and Tex-Mex Egg Rolls.  I am a pretty big fan of Andygator.  It is a Helles Doppelbock style beer with a 8% alcohol content with a delicious, crisp bite to it.  Matt Mediamolle and his buddy Gary joined us at the Bulldog in time for the game.  Throughout the game we proceeded to have pitchers of Nola Brown, Nola Blonde, Abita Purple Haze, and quite a few more.  It was a great time, the Saints won, and everybody was happy.  Oh, and the beautiful Amanda Callais came and joined us as well.  The nachos and egg rolls were typical pub food.  Very satisfying while drinking beer in a bar, but nothing to rave about here.  When we left the Bulldog we went over to see Matt and Gary's apartment, drank a few Champagne of Beers, and then decided it was time for Sushi Brothers on St. Charles... we had heard good things.

Sushi Brothers is cozy a little Japanese restaurant that provides a comfortable atmosphere and spectacular sushi.  We started with a nice squid salad and some salty edamame.  The two appetizers complimented each other very nicely and our meal was already off to a terrific start.

Eusebio, Brandon, and I all ordered some Kirin Ichiban bombers to take care of our thirst as we awaited our first sushi rolls.  Round one included a Louisiana Roll, a Crunchy Dynamite Roll, and an Uptown Roll.

The Louisiana Roll made me a little nervous since one of the key ingredients was pickled okra but after the first bite I quickly got over my fear of all things pickled and realized that the roll was rather flavorful.  The Crunchy Dynamite Roll was a fairly standard version of the always delightful classic.  The Uptown Roll contained yellowtail, snow crab, and avocado, topped with eel sauce.  The flavors meshed very well together and all three rolls were a treat... but they just got us warmed up for what came next.  I present the Tiger Roll, the Rock'N'Roll, the LSU Roll, and the FEMA Roll!

The Rock'N'Roll was a beautiful creation of tempura shrimp, snow crab, avocado, and asparagus with an eel sauce on top.  The LSU Roll also featured tempura shrimp but this time it was paired with cream cheese and some other goodies and topped with fresh tuna and avocado.  The roll had a good taste at first but was soon overpowered by the cream cheese... so much so that I don't remember what else was in it.  The FEMA Roll sported salmon, snowcrab, avocado, and asparagus rolled in rice and soybean paper then topped with spicy tuna, smelt roe, and a special sauce.  The FEMA Roll had a whole lot of flavors that came together to produce something... interesting.  The spicy tuna on the top was rather mushy and definitely belongs inside a roll and not on top.  A lot of the other ingredients were items that we had tasted before and this time it was just too much, and FEMA was an edible disaster compared to the other rolls we ate.

The star of the show was the Tiger Roll.  It started with a delicious dynamite roll as the base and was then topped with tuna, yellowtail, salmon, and barbeque eel.  The fresh fishes that laid atop the Tiger Roll had terrific textures and sensational flavors.  It was a truly delightful sushi roll that I would certainly be willing to go back and eat again.  Overall Sushi Brothers proved to be a great experience, especially after a day of beer drinking and football watching.  The meal was delicious from the first bite to the last.  It had a few rocky parts along the way and there were a couple of the rolls that we tried that I would not order again... but mostly only so that I could try something else instead.  The Tiger Roll was money.  It was really about as good as any sushi roll I've indulged on before.

What a Sunday!  And wait, Monday is the Baton Rouge Culinary Classic!  Stay tuned for that update.