A Mexican-Colombian Salad

Have you ever had a recipe born out of absence of ingredients ?  

I usually do substitutions and that involves using one ingredient over another-- the latter I reject, either because I don't quite like it or its too expensive or its not available or it has high calorie. But that is not the sort of situation that I am talking about today. I am talking about situation involving real absence of ingredients that I had the full intention of using.

Without much ado, let me give you the entire story. 

I love this blog and this blogger. It is Erica of My Colombian recipes. She has the most flavorful and lovely assortment of Colombian food on her blog. And best part is it is simple to make and great to look at. So a few days back I saw this incredibly colorful salad on her blog and decided that I absolutely have to do this.  I had all the ingredients it featured. Chickpeas, onion, tomato etc. I am not a big fan of Avocado and so decided that cucumber would be the only substitution I would go for. I surely had cucumber in my pantry. So me...dreaming of this lovely salad on Friday night. This was the Friday we just flew by.

On my way home, I quickly drop into the grocery store to get the shrimp. That was the only ingredient I had to get. Or so I thought. Well...not so fast. Turned  out that other than Shrimp, tomato, onion and eggs I had  no other ingredient! Not the cucumber and definitely not the chickpeas and beans. The cans which I thought hosted these legumes actually had in them varieties of olives!  Why did I have so many olives??

Am I glad that I did not have chicpeas :) I had two fresh corns. And that changed the salad. A bit mor emexican than I indtended. But so delocious! A simple salad dish born out of absence of ingredients! who says less isn't more?

Ingredients for the salad

Two ears of fresh corn. Clean the skin etc of te corn and with a knife carefully slice away the pods along the length of the corn.  Microwave the corns for a good 1 minute. Just takes of that rawness a bit . You can use frozen ones of course. 

2 tomatoes. Diced

1 medium red or yellow onion. Diced

Half a cup of cilantro

2-3 cloves of garlic. Diced finely.

Half a cup of cooked shrimp. 

The marinade is the same as Erica's Colombian salad.

Garnish with two boiled eggs, cut into half.

A lovely mexican-columbian salad...to be enjoyed with a glass of wine and peace of mind :)

Happy eating and healthy living