Mexican Chopped Salad

I wanted to have something different with our ChileColorado and searched the web for a Mexican salad that sounded good and came upon an interesting looking recipe on The Café Sucre Farine blog.  It had lots of ingredients and I didn’t followed the recipe exactly so I noted my changes.

Mexican Chopped Salad – Adapted from The Café Sucre Farine

Ingredients:

Ingredients for the dressing:

¼ cup fresh lime juice

2 tablespoons honey

½ teaspoon cumin

1 clove garlic finely minced

½ teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons canola oil

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

freshly ground black pepper

taste and add salt if needed

Ingredients for the tortilla strips: (Larry didn’t use these)

6 6- inch corn tortillas

1 ½ tablespoons canola oil

½ teaspoon sea salt

Ingredients for the salad:

1 medium head romaine lettuce chopped in approximately ½ inch pieces

1 medium bell pepper diced in ¼-inch pieces**, any color

½ medium red white onion diced in ¼-inch pieces**

½ medium jicama peeled and diced in ¼-inch pieces**

2 cans water chestnuts, rough chop

1 medium zucchini diced in ¼-inch dice**

4 medium tomatoes seeded and diced into ¼-inch dice**

About 2 cups of grape tomatoes cut into 2 or 3 pieces

4 ears corn if fresh corn is not in season, substitute 1½ cups of sweet, tiny frozen corn

1 ½ cups 1 can black beans drained and rinsed

½ cup finely chopped cilantro plus whole cilantro leaves for garnish, if desired

Instructions:

For the dressing, combine lime juice, honey, cumin garlic and salt.

In a slow, steady stream, add the oils, stirring continuously with a fork or small whisk.

Taste and add more salt and pepper, if needed. Set aside.

For the corn tortilla strips, preheat oven to 400˚F.

Stack corn tortillas on a cutting board. Cut in half. Cut each stack of halves into thin strips, widthwise, about ¼-inch thick.

Transfer tortilla strips to a sheet pan. Drizzle with oil. Sprinkle with salt and toss to coat.

Bake for 15-20 minutes, stirring every 5 minutes, or until light golden brown and crisp. Set aside to cool.

For the salad, place corn, two ears at a time, in the microwave and cook for 3 ½ minutes.

Remove from microwave with a hot pad and allow to cool for 5 minutes.After cooling, cut bottom end of corn off, about 1 ½ inches from end. Pull back husk and silks (almost all of the silk should easily pull away). Cut kernels from husks and set aside.

Thaw the frozen corn.

Combine corn and other salad ingredients in a large bowl. Stir to combine. Add dressing and stir to coat all ingredients. Garnish with cilantro leaves, if desired.

Serve with tortilla strips on top or place a bowl on the side and let guests help themselves.

Verdict:

We all thought the salad was good but the dressing had somewhat of an unusual flavor.

The recipe made eight servings so we had plenty left over for the following night to go with our burrito made from the leftover Chile Colorado which was delicious.

Photos can be enlarged by clicking on them and the blue words are links.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

11/14-15/21 event date