Of Corn and Barbecue
Back in July, I wrote a column about corn, in which I listed a lot of ways to use leftover cooked corn sheared off the cob.
Well, I just found another way.
Pulling leftovers out of the fridge this week, I found some corn, a piece of barbecue chicken, and some cut ends of red and green bell peppers.
At first, I thought I’d toss the corn with the peppers and add some chopped onion and a light vinaigrette. In other words, I’d make a salad to serve alongside the piece of chicken.
Then I thought, “Why dirty two dishes? Why not just throw cut-up pieces of the chicken into the corn salad?”
I also had a couple of tablespoons of the sauce that I had put on the chicken. I hated the idea of throwing it out. “What if,” I thought, “I throw in the sauce, too, and use it in place of the dressing?”
Well, even I had reservations about this. Frankly, I was afraid that the barbecue sauce would overwhelm everything.
It turns out that this actually works, provided you go easy on the barbecue sauce. I’d start with no more than 2 tablespoons of sauce to 1 cup of veggies plus ½ cup of chopped chicken. The raw crunchy vegetables — the bell peppers and red onion — help balance the intensity of the sauce.
My sauce was only slightly sweet, and fairly tangy. If you happen to have very sweet sauce, you probably will want to mix in a little vinegar or lemon juice to give it more of the tang associated with salad dressings.
So if you love barbecued chicken and corn, and you won’t mind the funny looks people will throw at you, give this a try.
