Why your corn came out crunchy up here
Ok so we've got salsas going, pork's resting, and now we're jumping over to elote because you need something to do while the rest of the plan finishes itself. This is also just a good spot to talk about elevation, because it trips up more people than the salsas do.
Here's the thing. Water boils at a lower temperature the higher up you are. Down at sea level water boils at 212. Up here, around 4,600 feet, it's boiling closer to 202, give or take. Doesn't sound like much but it's enough that your corn just isn't cooking as fast as a recipe written by somebody in Florida thinks it should.
I found this out the hard way my first summer doing this. Followed a recipe, pulled the corn at the time it said, bit into it, and it was crunchy. Not al dente, not "has a little bite" — crunchy, like it hadn't really decided to become food yet. I figured I'd messed up the water temp or grabbed old corn. Did it again the next weekend, same result. Took me three cobs before I actually stopped and thought about why, instead of just blaming the corn.
What to actually do about it
Give it more time than the recipe says. If a recipe from somewhere lower says 4 minutes, you're probably looking at 7 to 9 up here. I know that's not a satisfying answer but it's the honest one. Start checking at 6.
Test it by eating a piece, not by looking at it. Corn looks done way before it is. Pull a cob out, cut a kernel off, taste it. If there's any squeak or crunch left, back in it goes.
Salt your water like you mean it. Not olive-oil-commercial amounts, but a real palmful. The corn's sitting in that water a while now, it should be picking something up.
Don't walk away. This is where the char opinion comes back in — most people are scared of a little black on their corn, but for elote you actually want it, just not on the boil. You get your char after, on the grill or in a hot dry pan, once the corn's actually cooked through. If you try to char raw-ish corn you get char on the outside and crunch in the middle, which is the worst version of this dish.
A word on the setup, because I learned this one too
When I first started messing with vertical al pastor rigs I built this little trompo out of scrap wood and a metal skewer, real proud of it, and the whole thing leaned about fifteen degrees the entire cook. Meat slid down to one side, cooked unevenly, looked like a leaning tower of pork. I fixed the lean the next weekend. Never used the thing again anyway, because oven-then-sear just works better and I don't have to build anything.
I bring that up here because elote's the same lesson in a different outfit. You can build a whole system around a problem — better rig, fancier setup, more equipment — when actually the fix was just understanding what was happening in the first place. My corn wasn't crunchy because I did something wrong with technique. It was crunchy because I didn't know water boils cooler up here. Once I knew that, the fix was just time. Not a better pot, not a lid trick. Time.
Putting it together
Once your corn's actually cooked through and you've got some char on it, everything after that is fast. Mayo or crema brushed on, cotija if you can find it, chili powder, and lime squeezed on at the very end — never in the pot, never early, acid dies the second it hits real heat and you lose the brightness you're going for. Squeeze it right before it goes on the plate.
I taught a couple of the Primary kids to do the lime-squeeze thing on activity day once and one of them decided straight lime wedges were a snack and ate the rest of the bag. Got a text from the mom that night. I apologized. Kid seemed fine with it though.
Before next time: grab your corn early so it's not the last thing you're scrambling with, and if you've got a meat thermometer, bring it — we'll use it again next lesson too.