Elotes Mexican Street Corn

Elotes or Mexican street corn cobs are easy to get at Mexican restaurants but did you know that elotes is super easy to make at home? Like ridiculously easy? I show you the quickest way to cook juicy corn and a delicious combination of sauce and cheese that will have you hankering for corn. This is a pushy recipe Dear Reader!

A few years ago I made esquites or Mexican corn salad and I still get messages from Dear Readers saying how much you love it. This is similar but uses corn on the cob instead of corn kernels in a cup or bowl. It’s a delicious combination of creamy, spicy and tangy from the cheese, chilli and lime. I’ve tried Elotes with different cheeses and different sauces but this combination was the absolute standout. Both of us cannot get enough of this corn – we are going to be so sad when corn season is over!

Tips For Making EASY Elotes

1 – I recently came across the EASIEST way to cook corn and that is using your microwave! I was completely skeptical of it before I tried it. I didn’t expect it to be good at all but once I tried it this way I now make this way on weeknights. We only fire up the grill on weekends when we have time. You basically pop two whole corn cobs in the microwave and cook on high for 6-7 minutes. That’s it! If you’re unsure (and I understand, I was too) just try it on one cob of corn for 4-5 minutes. You can also boil the corn or grill it. It’s up to you!

2 – The sauce that you brush on the corn is the easiest mix of mayonnaise, garlic powder and Sriracha or your favourite chilli sauce. I use garlic powder for a more even distribution of the garlic. I tried this with Mexican crema but I liked the flavour of this better.

3 – Traditionally you would use crumbled Cotija cheese for elotes but this can be hard to find in Australia. I use crumbled Greek feta for this. Any dry feta or cheese works on this (i.e. I wouldn’t use Danish feta as it’s creamy). You can also use ricotta salata or grate parmesan on top of it in place of feta.

4 – To finish off the corn, add chopped coriander and a generous sprinkle of Tajin. Tajin is a Mexican chilli lime condiment originally designed to season fruit that will change your Mexican cooking. It adds so much brightness and flavour to your food. We keep it on the table nowadays because we love it on everything. Be generous with your Tajin!

Sometimes I just have elotes for dinner especially when I’ve been out for a big lunch and I’m full. I love having this easy dinner up my sleeve especially when we have a busy week. The other night we had a bit of a strange afternoon and night. Valentina messaged me that afternoon as she was looking for her former homestay student Yuki (who recently house sat for us). Valentina wasn’t able to message her on Instagram and that was unusual because Yuki responds really quickly to Instagram DMs. When I took a look, I saw that she had deleted all of her Instagram grid images and her account looked disabled.

Over the next couple of hours Valentina tried calling Yuki to no avail. They live around the corner from each other so she went to knock on her door but there was no answer. I spoke to Valentina later that evening around 9pm and we both started to worry. I tried calling Yuki and I got a message that that number was no longer accepting calls. If her Instagram account wasn’t disabled we wouldn’t have necessarily worried but it seemed cause for concern. Even Mr NQN was worried about her.

I called Valentina and she explained that her mind immediately went to the 4 missing homestay students in South Australia. Their social media accounts had been disabled and their phones turned off. Valentina went around to her house again and knocked loudly and eventually, after a lot of pounding, a guy answered the door. “I’ll get her,” he said going to her room but returned alone. She wasn’t there and the last time he saw her was the day before.

Now we were really starting to get worried. We kept running scenarios like a stolen phone but it all didn’t make sense that she would disable her Instagram account or delete all of the images. All I thought about was her mum back in Japan and that Yuki was her only child. “I’m going to call the police, just in case. I’d rather do too much than too little,” I said. It’s actually a fallacy that you have to wait 24 hours to report someone missing and the first 24 – 48 hours are the most crucial. So I called them and gave them her details. They asked when we last had contact with her, whether she had any health issues and said that they would send a car around to her house. I updated Valentina and went to have a shower and brush my teeth.

And then the phone rang. It was a constable from the local police station. “I have Yuki with me,” he said. Relief flooded my body and I realised then how tense I had been. “Can I talk to her?” I asked. It turned out Yuki was safe and sound. She had changed her phone number so that’s why we couldn’t get a hold of her. When I asked her why her Instagram had been disabled, she didn’t realise that it was!

So tell me Dear Reader, do you like elotes? And how do you cook corn? And do you think you would have done something or waited it out in this situation?

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Elotes

An Original Recipe by Lorraine Elliott

Preparation time: 5 minutes

Cooking time: 10 minutes

Makes 4 corn cobs

• 4 corn cobs
• 50g/1.7ozs mayonnaise
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder (or 1 large clove garlic, minced)
• 3 teaspoons Sriracha or your favourite chilli sauce
• 160g/5.6ozs Greek feta, crumbled
• 2-3 tablespoons coriander, chopped
• Tajin Mexican seasoning

Buyer’s Note: Tajin Mexican seasoning can be found online.

Step 1 – Cook the corn however you like-I place two whole cobs (husks and all) in the microwave and cook for 6-7 minutes. Allow it to cool for 5-8 minutes or so, so that it is easy to handle (if I am in a hurry I wait a few minutes and then use washing up gloves). The silks are easy to pull out from the top and then pull down the husks. You can remove them at this point or leave them on to make the corn easy to pick up.

Step 2 – In a bowl mix the mayonnaise, garlic powder and Sriracha and place the crumbled feta on a shallow plate and have the chopped coriander ready. Brush on the corn on all sides with the mayonnaise and then roll in the feta, you may have to pat it onto the corn cob. Sprinkle with coriander and Tajin and eat.