Vegan Chef Eddie Garza’s Latin American Foods, Part 1 of 2 - Mexican Vegan Esquites (Corn Salad) with Almond Cotija Cheese

Mr. Eddie Garza was once a professional musician and a teacher and is currently a celebrity vegan chef, cookbook author, and host of “Global Bites with Eddie Garza” on OzTube. “Today I’m super excited to share with you one of my very favorite dishes from childhood. They’re called esquites.” “In this recipe, we’re going to find none of that. No eggs, no dairy, all deliciousness. So, let’s go ahead and get this baby started. The first thing we’re going to do is toast our corn. I’ve got just some sweet corn, and I’m going to add just a little bit of oil and add it to my grill. We’re just going to use two ears of corn for this one.”

“So to make it fresh, we’re going to be using fresh almonds that have been blanched. And I’m just going to add these to the processor, and we’re going to get these to turn into a little bit of a powder.” “In a traditional Queso Cotija or Cotija cheese, we’re going to have some element of brightness, like with most Mexican cheeses. So I’m going to take a lime, squeeze the lime juice right into my almonds. I will also add a lot of salt to this. When I say a lot, I’m talking about like one teaspoon.”

“It is our jalapenos. Now you don’t necessarily need to add jalapeno to your esquites. I do.” “I’m going to toss these into my bowl where I’m going to add my corn to mix with my esquites. I’m using this in rings. You can dice it up. All right, the next thing we’re going to do is to take about one tablespoon of cilantro, the rest we’re going to use for decor. And I’m just going to slice some little nice slices to incorporate into our corn salad.”

“Our corn is cooked. Now keep in mind if you’re using some fresh fire, it is going to be a little bit more charred. But this is perfect. So, all you want is to get the nice brown on every single side just like that. And then we’re going to cut the kernels off the ears, just like this. And we’ll toss all of this together. It should be like a very wet corn salad, just like this. We’re going to now put this in a beautiful Mexican bowl. Oh yeah, super creamy, yummy esquites! Add some chili powder right on the top. And of course, we will decorate with some beautiful cilantro right in the center. So, this is Mexican street food at its finest.”