When it comes to comfort food, nothing is more a-peeling than this homemade street food known as Esquites, or Warm Mexican Corn Salad. With only a handful of fresh ingredients and requiring only ten minutes to whip together, OXO’s corn peeler makes this a new staple side dish in my weekly cooking rotation! (This post is sponsored by OXO. All opinions are, as always, 100% my own.) #OXOBetter #ad
This is my second time this week sitting down with a bowl of homemade Warm Mexican Corn Salad and typing away at my computer. maybe it’s because the first time around somebody (not me) decided that a hypothetical somebody (not me) should eat all of the corn salad before I had a chance to photograph it. And that somebody is most definitely not me.
I’ve always loved street food to the nth degree, where “n” = 10,000,000 and my appetite is absolutely asymptotic. My first encounter with it occurred years ago in Hong Kong, where I spent a summer studying abroad during college. Stepping into the HK dai pai dong scene (as it’s called there) was like being transported into a whole new world–one filled with bubbling deep fryers, dirt-cheap sticky rice rolls, desserts made from every sweetened bean imaginable, and enough dim sum a la carte to leave you full for days.
From then on, my eyes were opened to a whole new way of eating. Why have one giant boring entree when you could try five travel-sized, delicious, flavor-packed street food dishes crammed into a delightfully flimsy paper tray? Tapas became the guiding principle of my travels to Spain; $1 tacos became the way of Los Angeles food truck life. And that, my friends, is where I first discovered the joy of Esquites, otherwise known as Warm Mexican Corn Salad.
Esquites is exquisite, plain and simple. With just corn, cilantro, lime, mayonnaise, and queso fresco as its main ingredients, it’s hard to find an easier and more comforting recipe that brings the world of street food glory right into your kitchen, wafting scents and all. The sprinkle of queso fresco and squeeze of lime offers a perfect foil to the toastiness of smoky corn and the creaminess of just a bit of mayo. And since I’m such a stickler for minimizing prep time (Wallflour Boy will tell you what a whiner I am when it comes to food prep!), I’m especially glad that I used OXO’s Corn Peeler, whose specially designed blade just zips on through ears of corn–fresh or cooked–while leaving behind an entirely clean cob. Even a prep procrastinator like me can’t complain when it comes to making this homemade comfort food at home!
Can’t wait to try this easy recipe for yourself? Visit OXO.com now for the full recipe!
Street food is wonderful! Love Mexican street corn — so tasty. And often when we go to restaurants, we’ll skip the main course and just have two or three starters. It’s weird, but so often starters taste much better than the mains. And they’re not nearly as hefty as most mains either, so we get great flavor without getting overly stuffed. 🙂