The side dish of the season: Grilled Corn and Bean Salad

Nobody starts cooking curries right from day one. Today, when I see teenage girls/boys struggling to chop and cook or using readytocook masalas, I cannot help but go back in those days when at the age of 13-14, my mum/grandma would call me to help her with salads or peeling vegetables.  Though, I would honestly admit that, while growing up in Mumbai, India, I hardly helped my mum in the kitchen. Why? Studies, friends, cousins, shopping, cinema...plenty of reasons for being out of the kitchen.

However, self-realization always takes its course. So, I started with the sides like chopping veggies for salads/"Koshimbir", grating coconut; again there were issues since our family used the traditional Indian tools and I had a hard time getting used to them, infact till date...now of course my knife skills have sharpened with different courses of life.

So, anyways, the other day we picked some perfect looking corn on the husk at out favorite Farmer's Market. They come very handy for side dishes with our usual curry and Fulkas. Hence made the all time favorite Grilled Corn and Beans salad. 


Here's what I added:

Half a can of beans (any red, black that's on hand)
Grilled corn or boiled corn
1/2 onion
1/2 tsp roasted coarsely ground cumin 
1/2 tsp amchur powder (dry mango powder)
chopped cilantro/coriander
1/2 tsp of lime juice
1/2 tsp chopped jalapeno (optional, I dnt add since my 3 year old son also enjoys this)
salt - pepper

I had a whole corn that I cleaned well, and grilled on the stove top. Easy!
Add 1/2 can of beans - Rinsed of course
Add chopped onion and cilantro.
Mix along with lime, cumin, Amchur (dry mango) powder. If I had some chat masala on hand, I would have just used that. Finally salt and pepper. I mixed everything just before dinner otherwise the salt would start leaving water. 
This salad goes so so well with almost everything Indian, or even a piece of grilled fish or chicken. 


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