Receta Roasted Corn & Tomato Salad with Basil Balsamic Dressing

Super simple Summer salad! Almost a relish, yet offering opportunity for countless variations, this is picnic & BBQ perfect.

On these hot summer days, you may not want to fire up the broiler, but this salad is so easy to bring together that when the coals are ready on the grill, just lay the unhusked ears of sweet corn over the fire and turn to get the husks blacked all around. You do want to gain some color on the kernels - anywhere from tan to scorched - because you do want some of the smokey, grilled flavor (otherwise I'd be telling you to open a can of Green Giant...).

You may, depending on your diners, want to introduce a 1/2 tsp of crushed red pepper, or some chopped olive (I'd recommend Nicoise - you don't want anything too strong or sharp, but stay away from the American black olives - too bland and not enoigh character for the dressing), or even, yes, some baby mozzarella.

So gather your 'mise', make sure everything 'en place', and assemble this most satisfying dish. I've paired this down to 4 salad-sized servings. You build from here.

The dressing is perfectly adequate for a "triple batch" - 6 ears corn, 3 pints tomatoes, 6 green onions, 6 cloves of garlic. That's why I direct you to drain the salad below. I basically batch this for about 16 servings and I like the proportions for the dressing, the flavoring, just as it is - but many of you, my friends, are serving 2-4-6 folks, therefore, lots of dressing is made for a modest amount of salad.
Creative recycling might be to reserve what you pour off - and use it to dress braised asparagus later...