The theme of our last tailgating Test Kitchen — for me, at least — was to hybridize 2 or 3 of my favorite football and party-friendly foods into one successful dish or bite. The theme for everyone else was “when are the potato skins going to be ready, Jess?” I also encountered “what’s that burning smell?” (It was wing glaze scorching, thanks.) 

With Baja fish tacos on the mind, I thought I’d make mini fried fish empanadas using folded-over tortillas. But the thought of folding and frying 20 fried fish empanadas in non-self-adhesive dough and finding five or six photogenic ones made me sad, so I decided to throw the whole concept on top of nachos. Problem solved. Shortly after this photo was taken, the team descended upon this plate like sharks. That’s the only measure of success we use in Test Kitchen.

Pro tip: wait til the fried fish cools down to room temperature before adding it to the nachos — all that heat escaping will steam the chips and make them soggy.