Corn and hominy salad

Take advantage of corn season with this raw, refreshing, and super flavorful corn and hominy salad.

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This salad was inspired by elote or Mexican street corn. When we lived in NYC, my favorite thing to get at the street fairs that popped up on summer weekends (we called them “socks and sausages”) was the grilled corn with mayo, chili powder, cilantro, and cotija cheese. Spray a little lime over those babies and they were the perfect mix of smoky, salty, creamy, and acidic.

I started developing this recipe last summer and never got around to posting it before corn season was over. This salad uses raw corn, so you really want to get the freshest cobs at the peak of their season. You can use frozen or otherwise not-peak corn and give it a quick saute before making the salad, but the fresh, raw stuff is truly the best.

So, there are about 12 million elote salad recipes on the interwebs, so what makes this one different, you ask? Hominy!

Hominy is dried corn kernels that have been soaked in an alkaline solution. Hominy is actually used to make masa, which is the key ingredient in corn tortillas, tamales, and other staples of Mexican cuisine. It has a light corn flavor with a slightly nutty aftertaste. Actually, once you taste hominy, you know that it tastes exactly the way corn tortillas taste.

The hominy adds bulk to the salad that makes it more versatile than a side dish. I’ve added this corn concoction into other meal salads and eaten it on its own with some shredded rotisserie chicken. So, while technically a side dish, this salad can easily transform into the star of the show.

A couple of notes:

• I only use 1/2 of a garlic clove because I want to be able to taste all of the ingredients rather than just raw garlic. If you really like garlic, feel free to use more, but I REALLY REALLY like garlic and 1/2 of a clove was more than enough for me.

• You can find prepared hominy in cans at basically any grocery store. If you have some dried hominy that you want to rehydrate, find instructions here.

• Cotija cheese is a dry, salty cheese that’s close to a farmer’s cheese. Kind of like if Feta and Parmesan had a baby. If you can’t find it, substitute a dry, nutty, crumbly cheese.

Corn and hominy salad

Yield: about 5 cups of salad
Time: 10 minutes

4 medium ears of corn, kernels removed (about 3½ cups)
1 cup hominy
1/3 cup fresh cilantro, tightly packed (stems and leaves are fine)
3 Tbsp mayo
½ tsp kosher salt
Juice of 1 large lime (1 Tbsp)
½-1 tsp chili powder, to taste
½ large garlic clove
Water, as needed to thin out the dressing, added 1 tsp at a time
3 oz cotija cheese

Remove the corn kernels with a knife. I like to use a bundt pan to catch them as they fly around, but any old bowl will do.

Rinse the hominy and add it to the bowl of corn.

In a blender or food processor, add the cilantro, mayo, oil, salt, lime juice, chili powder (start with 1/2 tsp and add more to taste), and garlic and blend until smooth, adding tiny amounts of water to thin out the sauce as necessary.

Mix the cilantro dressing into the corn and hominy.

Taste for seasoning and add more salt, chili powder or lime juice.

Mix in the shredded or grated cojita.

Rainbow Chard Galette

This Rainbow Chard Galette is so good (I mean, there’s cheese and puff pastry, what’s not to love) and a serious show stopper for your Easter feast (or any day, really).

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OVENS, amiright? It recently occurred to me that the real secret to successful baking is knowing your oven well. I mean, measuring and experience and bringing things to room temperature and patience are also important, but seriously, if you know that your oven runs hot or cool or that it has uneven spots, you can really up your baking game.

As you can tell, I’m still adjusting to our oven even though we’ve lived in our current house for almost two years.

Luckily, I’ve found that store-bought puff pastry is fairly forgiving. As long as your filling isn’t too wet and the oven is at least 400 degrees, you’re pretty safe.

Which makes this easy galette a reliable option for your holiday table.

A couple of notes:

• I like to rip the greens off of the stems and then arrange the stems in a way that flexes my OCD muscles. HOWEVER, you can opt to chop everything together to save time and that’s perfectly acceptable.

• Roasting garlic makes the flavor mellow and mild, which I like here because it lets the chard sing. But if you like a stronger garlic flavor, chop the cloves and saute them with the spring onions and greens instead of roasting. Or you can do half and half.

• This galette really needs salt. I salt at the beginning and end of wilting the greens and then finish with some more salt. I like salt. If you don’t, I urge you to salt at the beginning and end of wilting (and taste test to make sure it’s not too much) and then skip the final salting rather than waiting to add salt at the end.

Rainbow chard galette

Time: 50-60 minutes (about 30 minutes active time, depending on how intense you get about arranging the chard stems)
Yield: 9 medium pieces

4 large garlic cloves
2 Tbsp olive oil + more for roasting the garlic (about ½ cup)
2 large spring onions (white/purple and green parts), chopped (about 1 heaping cup) sub scallions if necessary
10 cups chard leaves, measured after chopping, lightly packed (about 2 medium bundles)
2 tsp balsamic vinegar
1/4 tsp kosher salt (a few big pinches)
A few cracks of black pepper
1 cup ricotta
3/4 cup nutty cheese like gruyere or aged Gouda, shredded
1 puff pastry sheet
1 Tbsp roasted garlic oil (from earlier roasted garlic)
1 egg, whisked

Preheat oven to 425.

Smash four garlic cloves (no need to remove the skin) and place in an oven-safe ramekin. Add enough olive oil to cover the garlic. Cook in the oven for 6-8 minutes, or until you start to smell garlic and the cloves are fork tender.

Meanwhile, heat 2 Tbsp olive oil in a very large skillet. Add the spring onions and sauté until translucent and fragrant, about 2 minutes.

Add the greens and a large pinch of salt. Cook until wilted, about 8-10 minutes.

Add the balsamic vinegar, another large pinch of salt, and a few cracks of fresh black pepper and stir a few times.

Once wilted, place the onions and greens into a large bowl. Add the cheeses and roasted garlic. Mix well.

On a floured surface, roll out the puff pastry dough to a thickness of 1/8th to 1/16th of an inch (about 1/3 bigger than original packaging). Move the dough to your sheet pan.

Spread the greens and cheese on the puff pastry, leaving a 1-inch frame. Fold the bare edges over onto the greens and cheese mixture.  

Arrange the chard stems in your desired pattern.

Brush the chard stems with 1 Tbsp roasted garlic oil.

Brush the lightly beaten egg over the visible parts of the pastry crust.

Bake for 18-20 minutes or until the bottom and the edges are golden brown.

Guacamole skewers

Guacamole skewers are a super easy way to use up a late-summer bounty of tomatoes AND feed everyone from a solo diner to a crowd of people.

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This recipe is also a way to use an avocado that is JUST ripe enough as well as cilantro at any life stage. For me, the cilantro is usually a few days past its prime because I was overly ambitious when I went shopping. And I am notorious for checking the avocado when it’s *nearly* there, but then forgetting about it for 5 seconds too long and suddenly it’s overripe and disgusting. But we are not wasting food in this house!

And I seriously love this sauce. If you don’t love cilantro…you’ll hate it. But I was luckily born without the gene that makes cilantro taste like soap, so I want to slather it on everything. Feel free to double the sauce ingredients if you want some leftovers: It’s bright and tangy and a perfect topper for chicken, veggies, and eggs.

Guacamole skewers

Time: 10 minutes
Yield: 16 skewers, plus extra dipping sauce

For the sauce
1 bunch cilantro, well-soaked/rinsed/de-sanded
4 Tbsp neutral oil
3 Tbsp lime juice
2 very generous pinches of salt and more to taste
1 large clove garlic

Roughly remove the stems from the leaves of cilantro (but a few stems are fine). Blend ingredients in a food processor until smooth. Taste for seasoning and add more salt or lime juice, as needed.

For the skewers
Red, orange, and yellow cherry tomatoes
1 large avocado (halved, quartered, and then chopped into fours to get 16 pieces)
2 limes (halved and quartered)
1 red onion (pickled if you like)