MEXICAN STREET
CORN SALAD
Elotes, the on-the-cob version of Mexican street corn, is a
staple on my balcony grill over the summer. It’s about as
easy and inexpensive a dish as you can think of, and there
is nothing—really, nothing—that’ll get snatched up and
eaten as fast as a hot plate of it.
I usually count on making at least an ear and a half per
person. To speed things up, I’ll keep a big bowl of the
coating mixture—that’s garlicky mayonnaise, crumbled
Cotija cheese (crumbled feta or grated Romano also
works well), chopped cilantro, lime juice, and a pinch of
chili powder—at the ready so that as soon as my corn
comes off the grill, all nice, hot, and charred, it gets a
dunk in the sauce, then a pass-off to a waiting mouth.
That first bite of hot charred corn, when the cheesy sauce
inevitably gets smeared all over your cheeks, just tastes of
summer to me. Delicious, fat-smothered summer.
But there are times when a more . . . demure approach
must be taken. When there are prim-and-proper aunts or
brand-new ties involved, for instance. For those
occasions, I go for esquites, the spoon-ready version of
elotes. Rather then slathering the ears of corn with the
sauce, you slice the kernels off after cooking and toss