Corn Chips Salad

This salad came about after we finished watching ‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes’. For those who haven’t watch this, you better schedule your next cinema visit ASAP! Awesome movie, fantastic visual, storyline, casts and I know this may sound weird, but I have an ape crush on Caesar! Yeah, that’s how good (convincing) it is!

Anyway, the movie session we went for started at 4pm and finished at about 6pm. Given any day, I would have had fast food for dinner. Since my beloved and I had stuffed ourselves silly with popcorns, choctop ice cream and a giant cup of frozen coke, we wanted something light and easy for dinner.

Basically this is a deconstructed nachos minus the meat sauce, sour cream and guacamole.  Even though I have left behind the good stuff which makes nachos macho, the  simplicity (no cooking required) and surprisingly, the deliciousness makes up for it! Believe me. 😀

Corn Chips Salad

(modified from the Company’s Coming Greatest Hits – Mexican)

Serves 2 as main or 4 as a side dish

Ingredients:

• 230g /8 oz “original” corn chips (no flavouring and preferably salt free)
• 2 tomatoes
• 1 baby cos lettuce
• 1 can of red kidney beans
• 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

Dressing:

• 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
• Juice of one lime
• Some salt
• Some white sugar
• 4 slices of pickled jalapenos
• 1/2 medium-sized onion

Methods:

• Prepare the dressing – finely chop onion and jalapeno and them into a small bowl.  Then pour olive oil and the juice of a lime and whisk until the mixture emulsifies. Add salt and sugar to taste (I prefer mine on the sweet side, and hence the sugar). Whisk again to mix the seasonings into the dressing. Set aside in the fridge while you move on to prepare the salad.

• Wash lettuce and tomatoes. Make sure you dry them (either with a kitchen towel or drip dry over a colander or a sift if you have the time) before slicing them as fine as you can muster. Also, please REMOVE THE SEEDS from the tomatoes to avoid wet and soggy salad. Then, add the sliced veggies in a large salad bowl.

• Drain and rinse the red kidney beans to remove the “gooey” liquid. If you’re not comfortable with consuming the beans straight from the can, for your peace of mind, let them sit over a sift and dip in a bowl of hot boiling water. Drain and add them to the salad bowl (make sure the beans are cooled before you mix then with the sliced lettuce and tomatoes).

• Toss the lettuce, tomatoes and red beans together with a fork and spoon (or in my case, with my clean hands :P).
• If you’re ready to eat immediately, dress the salad first (minus the corn chips & cheese) and toss gently to combine – clean hands are prefect in this case. Then add the corn chips and cheese, toss gently again to mix them into the salad. SERVE IMMEDIATELY.

• If you’re not ready to eat immediately, store the salad and dressing separately in the fridge. Dress the salad and add corn chips and cheese when you’re ready to serve. Please be aware that the first-in-first-out (FIFO) rule doesn’t apply to corn chips. Even though corn chips will be the first to go off the plate, they should be the last ingredient to be added into the salad! Nobody likes soggy corn chips. 🙂

This recipe was being featured as one of the EnergyAustralia’s top simple and tasty oven-free recipes. For more energy saving recipe ideas, don’t forget to read the full article here.