Week 18 - Peruvian

There are so many great dishes that are part of Peruvian cuisine, from their rotisserie chicken and ceviche, to aji de gallina and lomo saltado. What would I pick for Week 18, Peruvian week? 

I didn't want to spend too much time searching for hard to find ingredients (like aji amarillo, which eliminated a bunch of dishes), but still wanted to do something that was distinctly Peruvian. I didn't want to do roast chicken or ceviche. Arroz chaufa is popular there, but that's basically Chinese fried rice, and I didn't feel right doing that for Peruvian week when I can make Chinese fried rice anytime I want (and have). 

After looking through tons of recipes, I finally found one that spoke to me: ensalada de choclo, a corn salad which traditionally uses choclo, the large kernel corn that you find in the Andes. Even though we live in NYC, I wasn't sure I could find choclo in the stores (which Wikipedia tells me is also called Peruvian corn or Cuzco corn), but if not, I hoped I could at least replicate the flavor of the salad with regular corn. I was definitely going to take a look though.

We don't have many grocery stores in our area that cater to Latin American populations, so we took advantage of a weekend trip to Brooklyn for family day to stop by a Bravo market to pick up some queso fresco and see if they had the elusive choclo. They did! Although the choclo was not cheap, I wanted to try it in the salad, so we could taste everything the way it should be.

I found a few recipes for ensalada de choclo online, but they all had almost the exact same ingredient list. I adapted the recipe for what I had, so we used:

- 1 lb cooked corn kernels ($4.29)

- 1 red pepper, finely chopped ($0.99)

- 1/2 large red onion, finely chopped ($0.42)

- 10 oz queso fresco, cut into small cubes ($3.29)

- 3 tbsp olive oil ($0.60)

- 3 tbsp lime juice ($0.80)

- 1/4 cup cilantro, minced ($0.60)

- salt and pepper to taste ($0.10)

The ensalada de choclo cost about $11. NOT CHEAP AT ALL. I sort of expected that once we took the leap and purchased the choclo for over $4. On top of that, cheese is not inexpensive, and we made this during limepocalypse and bottled lime juice is pricey. Sure, this made generous sides for our dinner, and I had an entire container left over for other meals, but $11?! Making this with regular corn would knock a few dollars off of that total, but that's still not very inexpensive. If I'm going to make this more often, maybe I should start buying the giant packages of queso fresco from Costco.

The corn kernels really were gigantic. To cook them, the package said to boil them in sugared water until they were tender. I let them go for at least 10 minutes until I thought they were cooked and tender. After eating them, A said they probably could have cooked for longer, but I'm no choclo expert. I wish the bag had given a time estimate!

Making the salad is really easy. You whisk the lime juice into the olive oil with some salt and pepper, combine all the other ingredients in a large bowl, add the dressing, and then add salt and pepper to taste. That's it.

The salad was colorful, that's for sure!

We paired it with some panko crusted chicken that came out of our freezer, which was a good combination.

This salad was really good, and tasted even better later in the week after it had chilled and the flavors had melded more. The choclo didn't have the same sweetness you get from regular corn and was more starchy. The red peppers and onions were good mixed in, and the queso fresco added the perfect amount of salty cheesiness. Although we're still partial to esquites, this salad was really good. Very refreshing and light.

I'm glad we were able to try the ensalada de choclo with choclo, the way it was supposed to be. If I make it again, I'll probably just use regular corn instead of searching out the expensive frozen choclo, but I think it'll still be good that way. That's two great corn salads this spring with this and the esquites. I'm ready for summer!