Elote Mexican Street Grilled Corn in Salad Form

In Central America and Mexico, an ear of corn, on or off the plant, is called “elote” (from the Nahuatl elotitutl, meaning tender cob). This term is also used in Mexican and Central American communities in the USA In the Southern corner of South America (Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil and Paraguay and the Andean State the term for elote is choclo, which comes from the quechua word chuqllu. In Valenzuela la corn is referred to as jojoto.

In El Salvador, Mexico, and the border states of The United Statse, elote commonly is eaten as a sweet or salty dish. Most commonly it is boiled in water with salt or other spices such as tequesquite , eqazoe , the Santa Maria herb or pericorn . Then condiments such as butter, mayonaise, and grated  cheese called  cotija  and in the case of Mexico, chili powder, lemon juice and salt are added to the corn . Elote, sometimes called “elotes locos” or crazy corn, is also served at town fairs in Mesoamerica. Seasoned with mayo, sweet and sour sauce, ketchup, and mustard, Elote is served with a wooden stick in the center, like a popsicle, to help the consumer hold it. In some regions of Mexico elotes are sold in the street by “eloteros” -- people who walk around cities or towns with a cart selling elotes. They can cover large distances or just stay in one place; for example, at plazas, or parks, outside of stores or any location where there are large amounts of potential consumers  The customers can pick the elotes of their choice: hard or soft, small or large kernels, and whether to put it with sour cream, mayonnaise, liquid cheese, chile powder, grated cheese or butter. The elotes are kept hot by putting them in the brazier where they were cooked. They should be served soon after they are done being cooked so they don’t change color or lose flavor. The elotes are usually boiled and transported wrapped in the husks  because cooking them in the husks gives them more flavor.
The eloteros also sell coal-grilled elotes (elotes asados). These elotes are splashed with salt water and grilled in the coals until the husks start to burn and the kernels reach a crunchy texture. In mesoamerica,it is custom to grill elote during the first harvest of the year --the end of June until the beginning of September. During this time women can be seen on the sides of the highway next to the cornfields selling grilled elote seasoned with lime juice and salt.

I saw package of Mexican Street corn salad in freezer section at Costco, but as you know Costco sells things in bulk and I did not want to buy that much so I decided to make this myself.
Elote Mexican grilled corn salad is an easy version of Mexican street corn and easy to eat.

Ingredients:

• 3 corn on the cob grilled on open fire (yields about 2.5 cup of shaved kernels of corn)
• 1 medium red onion chopped 
• 2-3 spring onions chopped finely with greens
• 1/2 green pepper finely chopped
• 1 tomato finely chopped
• 1 fresh Jalapeno pepper finely chopped 
• 1/3 cup of  cilantro finely chopped (save some for garnish)
• 1/2 cup of queso blanco ( you can use Cojita cheese if available)
• Juice from one lime
• You can use 2 tables spoon of Mayo but I used 1/4 cup of Creamy Avacado salsa instead.
• Save some cheese and salsa for garnish.  
• Salt to taste

• 1 tablespoon of Tjin mexican seasoning ( you can use plane chili/cayenne pepper powder instead of this )
• 1 tablespoon of freshly roasted cumin powder (you can see in picture how I did like my mom used to roast cumin seeds,   on low heat in a skillet and then let them cool and you can use a coffee  grinder to powder them, I just used old fashion rolling pin and crushed them to coarse powder.)

Method: 

• Grill and shave the corn on cob as shown in pictures.
• Chop all the onions, tomato and pepper (I used Vidalia onion chopper for evenly chopped size of onions, and peppers)
• Mix corn, red /green onions, cilantro, peppers, tomatoes, lime juice, Tjin seasoning, chili powder cumin powder, salt and lime juice.

• Stir in cheese and Creamy avacado salsa or mayo. ( save some of the cheese, cilantro and salsa for garnish)
• Serve in a bowl, garnish with cheese, salsa, cilantro and serve with corn chips or just plane as side dish.

You can adjust amount of all ingredients to your taste and may add any other desired ingredients stated above in the information about Elote.
You can not go wrong. It is a great side dish !!

Enjoy !!

Elote information source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corn_on_the_cob#Elote https://en.wikipedia.org
/wiki/Wikipedia:Text_of_Creative_Commons_Attribution-ShareAlike_3.0_Unported_License
 Recipe and Photographs by Surekha.

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