Salads
Summer Sweetcorn Salsa
This salsa is designed to be sweet and fresh rather than hot and fiery, but you can tweak the chilli to your liking, bit by bit. An ideal condiment to a BBQ or an al fresco meal, it sits somewhere between a sauce and a chopped salad.
Cook's notes
If you’d rather cook your sweetcorn on the BBQ, soak the cobs in cold water for 20 mins before throwing them on the BBQ and cooking for about 15 mins, turning frequently. The husks will burn, but you should be left with perfect smoky corn underneath. If you’re feeling thrifty, you can save the cobs after the kernels are removed and add them to a stock pot. They will impart a little of their characteristic sweetness.
Ingredients
- 2 sweetcorn cobs
- 1 red onion
- 1 mini cucumber
- 150g cherry tomatoes
- 1 lime
- 10g coriander
- 1 chilli
- salt
- olive oil
Method
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Step 1
Pop a saucepan of salted water on to boil.
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Step 2
Strip the husks away from the sweetcorn. When the water is up to a boil, pop the sweetcorn in and leave to simmer for 8-10 minutes until the kernels are tender.
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Step 3
Meanwhile, peel and finely dice the red onion; if it’s much bigger than a golf ball, you’ll only need to use half. Chop the cucumber into a fine dice. Roughly chop the tomatoes. Add them all to a mixing bowl along with the juice from half the lime and a pinch of salt.
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Step 4
When the sweetcorn are cooked, drain and them leave to cool, or cool in cold water to save time. Cut the end off each cob to give you a flat base, and then stand them upright and use a sharp knife to cut the kernels away from the cob.
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Step 5
Finely chop the coriander, stalks and all. Finely chop the red chilli - include the seeds for heat, or deseed first if you like things a bit milder.
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Step 6
Throw the sweetcorn kernels into the mixing bowl along with the coriander, half the chilli and 1 tbsp of olive oil. Taste and tweak the salt, lime and chilli to your liking. Keep refrigerated if not using straight away; it will store well for 2-3 days.