Recreating Mesa Grill: Corn with Roasted Chiles

This side dish deserves musical accompaniment. Yeah, it's that good. I'm thinking a lot of brass, trumpets, trombones, maybe even some tubas, blaring along as this dish reaches your table. A big crescendo builds up as heaps of the slightly spicy and rich creamy corn is loaded onto plates. Cue fork. Louder and louder- the horns are taking it home. Corn meet taste buds. Taste buds meet corn. True love. 

Ok, maybe I'm getting a little carried away but this is the side dish that ultimately made me want to own the entire Mesa Grill cookbook. The craziest part about this whole thing is that I don't even like corn that much. But add in some peppers and a few other things and it's a corn nirvana. 

Corn With Roasted Chiles, Creme Fraiche, and Cotija Cheese 

(adapted ever so slightly from Bobby Flay's Mesa Grill) 

Ingredients: 

• 3 tablespoons olive oil 
• 1 medium red onion, chopped 
• 2 cloves garlic, chopped 
• 1 small poblano chile, roasted, peeled, and seeded 
• 1 red bell pepper, roasted, peeled and seeded 
• 2 cups corn kernels (I used canned, drained corn) 
• 2 tablespoons cold butter 
• 2 tablespoons creme fraiche or sour cream (I of course went with the SC) 
• 2 tablespoons lime juice 
• 1/4 cup Cotija or Parmesan cheese 

Directions: 

• Heat the oil in a large sauté pan over medium-high heat. Add onions and cook until soft. Add garlic and cook for 1 minute. Stir in the poblano, red pepper and corn and cook until the corn is tender, about 8 to 10 minutes.
• Stir in butter, crème fraiche/ sour cream, lime juice and cilantro; transfer to a serving bowl and sprinkle with  cheese.

I could not for the life of me find Cotija cheese (Shame on you Wegmans. You are suppose to have everything!) So, (thanks be to smart phones) I quickly looked up a suggested substitute while feeling desperate in the cheese department. The ever so common Parmesan came up as an acceptable substitute. 

This is an all around fantastic side dish. Serve it with black bean soup. Or chili. Spoon it over some nachos or stuff it inside a taco (porque no los dos?) I even think this would be great over a leafy bed of greens. No further dressing needed. But maybe some sour cream, no?