Ginny’s Mexican Corn Salad

by

Mexican Corn Salad-1

Mexican Corn Salad is a riff on the south-of-the-border street food classic – grilled corn served with lime, mayo and cheese.  Except there was no room on our grill, so Jody’s sister Ginny, the creator of the dish,  threw it in the oven just to see what would happen.  It didn’t get smokey or charred, the way it would have on the grill, but it worked out fine nevertheless.  Testing the salad four times in the last two weeks (i.e. feeding our kids and their friends), confirmed what we’ve always suspected: whether the corn is local or not is way more important than whether it’s cooked on the grill or in the oven.  We sampled corn from Whole Foods, from a farmers market down on the Cape and from our neighbor outside of Boston, Allandale Farms.  That latter two choices made corn salads that sing – the Whole Foods option was okay (the kids hoovered it up), but not in the same league as the farm stuff.   Don’t cheat yourself.  If you’ve got local corn available, use it–even if you just steam it.  People get a little loopy about corn, perhaps because it shows up so late in the season.  I’ve seen people who would sneer at an out of state tomato pawing through a mound of imported supermarket corn in June, obsessively wrenching apart  the husks to peer into the crown, invariably disappointed.  What are they hoping to find?  Do they really think that the starchy ears trucked in from ten states away will be any good?  Have tomatoes taught them nothing?  If peace, love and happiness aren’t growing in your own back yard–at least when it comes to corn and tomatoes–then they probably aren’t growing anywhere at all.

Here’s another wrinkle: to my palate all corn intended for human consumption is growing sweeter and sweeter, local or not.  As a kid in the rural Midwest, I used to listen to my mother pine during the months of June and July, then wax ecstatic when the local silver queen showed up in farm stands in August.  Small, with rows of pearly kernels perfect as gerbil teeth, silver queen was markedly sweeter than other varieties.  And you did one thing with it – you brought it home and cooked it that night.  By the next morning its fabled sugar would have transformed into starch.  Now, almost all corn is quite sweet, assuming it’s fresh, and it tends to stay sweet longer, the result of hybridization, I suspect.  With American food, if a little sweetness is good, then a lot of sweetness must be fabulous.

So it should come as no surprise that hot + sweet (sound familiar, BBQ fans?) is what propels this salad.  You can modulate the heat according to your taste and tolerance, but if you make it with local corn, now that August is in full swing, it will be great.  Enjoy.  Ken

Note: Jody collected the shells on a beach off Sandy Neck, in Barnstable.  “Hey, look what I found–photo props!”

Mexican Corn Salad-2

GINNY’S MEXICAN CORN SALAD

Makes 8 side servings

Ingredients:

  • 6 super fresh ears corn
  • Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
  • ½ cup mayonnaise, homemade or jarred (we like Hellman’s, if we’re not making our own)
  • 1-2 canned chipotle peppers, finely chopped–they’re spicy, so adjust to your heat tolerance.
  • 2 limes, one juiced and the second cut into 8 wedges
  • 1 red bell pepper, peeled and chopped into ¼-inch dice
  • 2 scallions, white and green parts thinly sliced, then chopped crosswise
  • 6 ounces queso fresco crumbled
  • ¼ cup chopped cilantro

Directions:

  1. Preheat the oven to 500ºF.
  2. Set the corn on rack on a sheet pan with at least 1 inch between ears.  Use 2 sheet pans if necessary.
  3. Roast in the bottom of the oven for 10 minutes.  Turn the corn over and roast another 10 minutes.  The outside husks should get a little toasty.  Remove from the oven.
  4. When cool enough to handle, about 5 minutes, remove the husk and silk from the corn.
  5. Slice the kernels off the cob and transfer to a large bowl.  Season with salt and pepper and allow to cool completely.
  6. In a small bowl, mix the mayonnaise with the chipotle and lime juice.  Add to the corn and toss well.  Add the remaining ingredients and toss again.   Taste and adjust seasoning if necessary.
  7. Serve cold or at room temperature with a wedge of lime.

Mexican Corn Salad-7-2

Mexican Corn Salad-6-2

Mexican Corn Salad-13

Mexican Corn Salad-14

Mexican Corn Salad-15

Jody Notes:

A few weeks ago, we had a party on the Cape.  This was a salad that my sister Ginny made.  It was fabulous.  She also made a version with parsley, rather than cilantro, for the folks who don’t like cilantro, it was equally good.  

The weekend before, we’d cooked for 20+ people after the first day of the PMC at my friend Marcy’s house.  She’s a saint.  She opens up her house to the team so we all have a beautiful and comfortable place to sleep between the two days of riding.  The dinner is always a bit of a blow out and we ran out of grill room so I improvised by roasting corn in the oven. We had taken the husks off, but I like the idea of doing it this way.  It’s much easier to take the silk off  the cobs.  If you want more of a char flavor and color, remove the husks before roasting.  

Go ahead, add your two-cents.  We love hearing what you think.

33 thoughts

  2. Thank you. Just in time for my husbands birthday party. I was mulling over a salad accompaniment to grilled steaks, now you’ve solved my problem. Luckily we have several farm stands in our town that always have “just picked” corn…This looks delicious!

    Reply

  7. Again, the colours are so vibrant in your food, love the look of this one. It also occurs to me I can serve this as a “make your own salad” so that a friend who is allergic to peppers can easily leave them out.

    Reply

  12. It was daycare vacation these last two weeks, and the grandmothers helped out. At the end of my mother’s visit at our house, she had two pronouncements: 1. That I should own mayo and 2. That I should really be making and packing my husband’s lunch every day. The first did happen, but not the second. Good thing it did, because we ended up having this for dinner last night. Slam dunk. Great stuff. Thanks so much for another great recipe.

    Reply

    • “Daycare vacation” always struck me as an oxymoron. And what a neglectful wife you are–not packing your husband’s lunch every day! Next thing you’ll be agitating for equal pay for equal work. I agree about the mayo, though. :-) Ken

      Reply

  14. Oh wow, this looks incredible. I love queso fresco in corn salad (and LOVE sweet corn, I agree that it seems to get sweeter every year! No complaints here.) I will have to bookmark this for whenever I can find some queso fresco.

    Reply

    • …and move fast. Soon there won’t be any fresh corn left either. I’m shocked at how quickly it’s getting cool. We’ve probably only got another week or two of tomatoes max. Thanks for the compliment. Ken

      Reply

Leave a reply to adisonevansmusic Cancel reply