Ceviche

Today, Jason and I made one of our favorite dishes—ceviche. Ceviche is essentially raw fish marinated in lemon or lime juice and seasoning. It comes in many different varieties (Mexican ceviche often has tomato sauce; in the Philippines and many other tropical places you'll see a similar dish that adds coconut milk) but the version we're going to show you today is one of the simplest, and probably closest to the style of ceviche you find on the Peruvian coast. Due to its simplicity, making this dish fantastic really depends on the quality and freshness of ingredients. For example, it is possible to make this dish from frozen fish (thaw it first), but the fresher the fish, the better the dish will taste. We're lucky enough to have a local fish market where fish are caught and sold daily.

Ceviche

{Printable Recipe}

Makes about 4 servings of 1 cup each.

Ingredients:

1 kilo fish – light meat works better. Works pretty well with many types of tuna, but today we used dorado (mahi-mahi) with excellent results. 

½ Cup fresh cilantro, chopped 

½ Cup lemon/lime/calamansi juice – as always, fresh squeezed is best 

1 ½ Teaspoons salt 

2 medium onions, chopped – Use what you like. We chose red onions for this recipe. 

3 fresh chili peppers, chopped – Again, follow your taste here. We had the tiny, super spicy peppers common in southeast Asia (Thai chilies aka Bird's Eye Chili), so three of them were plenty to give the dish a little kick without being overwhelming.

Method:

1. Remove all bones and skin from the fish and cut into bite-sized cubes.

 

2. Chop up the onions, cilantro, and peppers. Mix them in a bowl together with the fish, lime juice, and salt.

 

3. Serve with crackers, tortilla chips, or something similar. If you really like sashimi, you can eat it right away. Otherwise, allow the ceviche to sit for 10-15 minutes before serving. The lemon juice actually cooks the fish as it marinates, so by waiting longer you have less of the raw fish taste and texture.

Tips: 

- If serving with salted chips or crackers, you may want to use less salt in the recipe. 
- Fresh cilantro is key to this dish's exotic flavor. Normally, we would have used three times as much, but we just used the last of what we had in the herb garden.

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