Roast Mexican Salad

I'm all about roasted salads at the moment. They're hearty, flavoursome and comforting for the Wintery weather. I've learned, with all my roasting of late, that there are a few important tricks to making perfect roast veggies; the most important being not to overcrowd your tray. I have quite a large oven tray and find that I get the best results when I roast my veggies in smaller, sparsely spread batches. I put the grill on its highest temperature (250 degrees Celsius) and roast each batch near the top of the oven for a quick 10-15 minutes, depending on the type of vegetable. This way, you retain the crunchy freshness of the vegetable, get a nice charred outside and you don't waste too much time and electricity cooking one big batch for a long time.

 To contrast the savoury roast corn, green pepper and mushrooms in this salad, I made a vinegar based dressing with purple onion, brown sugar and fresh herbs. The acidity of the vinegar works beautifully with the olive oil coating of the vegetables.

For the salad:
2 ears of corn
1 green pepper, diced
1 punnet button mushrooms, halved
1 purple onion, roughly chopped - keep 1/4 aside for the dressing
1/2 cucumber, diced
10-15 baby plum tomatoes, halved
4 tbs olive oil for roasting
Himalayan salt and black pepper for seasoning

Turn your grill on to 250 degrees Celsius. Cut the nibs of the corn directly into your oven tray and coat with 1 tbs olive oil and a pinch of salt. Roast for 5-10 minutes. Repeat with the green pepper and onion in one batch and then the mushrooms. The mushrooms may need a little more than a tbs olive oil as they are very absorbent, though I try to use as little as possible where I can. Allow the veggies to cool before combining in a medium-large bowl with the cucumber and tomato.

For the dressing:

1 tbs Sriracha sauce (or any chilli sauce you have available)
1 tbs lemon juice
2 tbs white wine vinegar
2 tsp brown sugar
1/4 purple onion very finely chopped
1 small handful cilantro, finely chopped
1 small handful basil, finely chopped

Combine all the ingredients in a small bowl. Toss the dressing through the salad and allow to sit for 15 minutes so that the flavours are absorbed into the vegetables.

This makes two large servings or four side servings. Unfortunately I don't have any ripe avo's at the moment, as a couple slices on top would be a great addition. This would also be fantastic served as a side with a slice of toasted ciabatta with avo.

Happy Winter salad making!