I’ve just returned from spending three incredible weeks cooking for some of the most influential people in the world on a ranch nestled in the mountains of western Colorado. The vistas were grand. the sunsets dazzling. and the night sky mesmerizing. Breathtaking views aside, the remoteness of the location made sourcing ingredients a challenge. With the nearest rural supermarket 2 hours away, most ingredients were Fedexed in from New York. As you might imagine the long journey isn’t too kind on delicate produce and we often opened up a box to find a pool of heirloom tomato puree instead of whole tomatoes, or a few pounds of basil turned to pesto under the weight of a 10 pound bag of bean sprouts. Luckily, corn was one ingredient that’s available locally and it was crisp, tender and sweet. This Chili Lime salad is something I came up with to pair with a Tex-Mex themed lunch which included smoked chicken tacos, grilled portobello quesadillas and braised pork tamales. Crispy, crunchy, spicy, tangy and sweet, it makes for a great side salad and the confetti of colors, textures and flavors makes it work as a salsa as well. While most grilled corn recipes have you char the corn in the husks, I find this to be terribly inefficient as you have to wait for the moist husk to completely dry out and char before the corn itself starts to char. The other problem is that the amount of time the corn takes to char in the husks causes the kernels to dry out and get gummy. By husking the corn before grilling, you can quickly get a nice char on the kernels while maintaining the crisp sweetness of fresh summer corn.
📖 Recipe
