Living in the southwest taught me to really appreciate Mexican food. So many tasty dishes, prepared with fresh ingredients. One of my last weekend getaways before moving back to Toronto was to Sedona Arizona, the land of red rock, and home of Elote Cafe, a southwestern restaurant serving up classic Mexican with a twist. No reservations + delicious food = 3.5 hour wait. Luckily the bar was open and they gave away free spicy popcorn.
Elote is a Mexican street food where the corn on the cob is slathered in mayo, and seasoned with some variation of lime, chili, cheese. At Elote Cafe, they serve it with cut kernels in a bowl and crispy corn tortillas chips for scooping. The servings were so huge that we barely touched our also gigantic entrees. Elote also sells a cookbook with their signature recipes which we bought and chef Jeff Smedstad kindly signed for us. You can buy in here.
The base of this dip is mayo – a condiment that, generally speaking, grosses me out. The only exception is tartar sauce and my aunt’s chicken salad sandwiches. Weird right? But anyhow, I used a vegan mayo for this so it’s great for those who are vegan, allergic to eggs, or grossed out by regular mayo. The parmesan cheese and chopped coriander are for garnish and completely optional. I’ve served elote both with and without and nobody notices, mainly because they’re too busy dipping their corn chips into the corn dip (dare I say it’s ‘corn porn’).
Leave a Reply