Barbecued Corn Salad with Roasted Tomatoes & Avocado

2:18 am on 6 March 2010

Serves 4-6
Time to prep 25 minutes
Time to cook 35 minutes

Ingredients

  • 4 sweet corn cobs
  • 2 tablespoons lime juice
  • 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil or avocado oil
  • sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
  • 2 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
  • 2 tablespoons chopped coriander
  • 1 ripe but firm avocado

Roasted tomatoes

  • 6 medium vine tomatoes, halved
  • caster sugar, sea salt, freshly ground black pepper and extra virgin olive oil

Method

First, remove the silks from the corn cobs. Pull down the husks leaf by leaf, remove the silks, then rewrap the cobs with the husks carefully. Bind them with string; don't use nylon 'string' or it will meltn. Soak corn cobs in cold water for 15-30 minutes. Cook corn cobs over hot coals for 15-30 minutes, turning often. If you don't have hot coals at your disposal, cook the corn cobs on a preheated lightly oiled barbecue hot plate over medium heat. Splash the corn cobs with cold water from time to time to create steam, and turn them every few minutes. If the barbecue has a lid, cook the cobs mostly with the lid down. They'll take 25-35 minutes to cook. Remove from heat and leave to cool.

To roast the tomatoes, put them cut side up in a shallow tin, such as a Swiss roll tin, lined with baking paper. Sprinkle with a little sugar and a little sea salt, grind over some pepper and drizzle with a little oil. Bake in an oven preheated to 225°C (fanbake) for 15-20 minutes until tomatoes start charring around the edges and losing shape.

When corn cobs have cooled enough to handle, remove husks and slice off kernels. Put corn kernels in a large bowl. Pour most of the lime juice and all the oil over the corn kernels and half a teaspoon of sea salt and a little black pepper. Add garlic and coriander and stir well.

Halve avocado, remove stone and peel. Cut into cubes or slices and sprinkle with remaining  lime juice. Season with salt and pepper. Put avocado and tomatoes on top of the corn salad. Mix together gently and serve immediately.