Los Angeles, I believe, is among the top three culturally diverse cities. Amsterdam and London are arguably one and two.
With that diversity comes a melding of flavors at home and in restaurants. Armenian’s diaspora is evident in spices used that may have originated in Syria, Argentina, Iran or elsewhere. The same recipe may taste different made by someone from Syria than someone from Iran, simply due to the spices used.
Here in Los Angeles, we have street vendors – Mexican, Guatemalan, Honduran, among others. A popular street food is “Elote” – corn covered in cheese, chili, lime and mayonnaise. It’s referred to as “Mexican Street Corn”, but Spain and France argue over the origins of mayonnaise, so elote is another “hybrid” flavor combination that everyone agrees is great… except for my brother and sister who, since they were little, can’t stand mayonnaise (I don’t know why)… and so I “doctored” the street corn into a salad for an end of summer bbq. I only call it Armenian, because I use feta and yogurt instead of mayonnaise and cotija. It just sounds better than “hybrid elote recipe”.
Ingredients
4 ears fresh corn cut off of the cob
2 T Smoked Olive Oil
3 T plain yogurt
1/2 cup feta cheese crumbled
2 T Habanero Olive Oil (Less if you can’t take the heat!)
4 T fresh squeezed lime juice
4 T cilantro chopped
Heat the smoked olive oil in a cast iron skillet and put corn in. Let it get to a dark gold and then stir. Turn off heat.
In a bowl mix yogurt, habanero olive oil, feta and lime juice. Add in the cooked corn and cilantro.
No need for salt or pepper – the feta and chili oil should be flavor enough!
Serves 4-6
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