Ceviche

This is a delicious dish which has hundreds, if not thousands, of variations.

It is a regular feature all across South America, but today we are bringing to you the Peruvian style.

The recipe uses typically and historically fish, but there is nothing wrong with exploring vegetarian options such as replacing the fish with artichokes or hearts of palm.

Big question: What fish should I use?

As you may have expected, there is no right or wrong answer here, you can make ceviche with almost any fish, depending on your preferences of flavor, texture, colour, price, availability… or even how easy or difficult they are to fillet. Our only suggestion would be to use a fish that it is relatively firm, so it doesn’t get crashed or overcooked by the lime when you stir it during the making process.

The author lives in Singapore, where good options are Red Snapper, Grouper, Salmon, Seabass, Hamachi, etc.

In the Peruvian tradition, ceviche is “cooked” on its way from the kitchen to the table, meaning that it should be eaten immediately after being made. We will follow this approach on this recipe.

Ingredients

• 500g of skinless fish fillet
• The juice of 500g of lime (around 250ml)
• 4 tablespoons of typically yellow chilli ground, but you may use rocoto or limo chilli as well, or even a mix of all of them
• 1 red onion
• 1 clove of garlic
• 1 small piece of ginger
• 1/2 branch of celery
• Salt and pepper to taste

Preparing the fish

For this dish you will need to fillet and remove the skin of the fish.

Chop the fish in small dice, sprinkle some salt on them, stir a bit an let them rest in the fridge until you are ready to make the ceviche.

Preparing the onion

Chop the onion in Julienne (small long pieces) and rinse them with water. Keep in the fridge for later.

The “Tigress’ Milk”

This is no other thing that the delicious dressing of the ceviche (if you want to think of it as a “salad”), but Peruvians associate a series of powers and curative attributes to it, so they actually drink it on its own.

Tasting and drinking it on its own will help you to fine tune and balance the ingredients, as it has to be very acidic so it can “cook” your fish, but complex and tasty enough so that you would be tempted to enjoy an 80ml shot of it.

Using a blender, blend the lime juice and all the ingredients above except the fish and the onion.

Add to the mix a few pieces of the diced fish or a bit of fish soup (if you used the rest of the fish to make fish soup) to lower the acidity a bit.

Taste your “tigress’ milk”.

Adjust salt, pepper, chilli, ginger or celery to your taste. It should be complex, acidic, salty and bold… but enjoyable to taste.

Put in the fridge and wait for your guests to arrive.

Putting all together and making the Ceviche

When your guests have arrived and are sitting on the table, use a big bowl or tray to put all the above ingredients together and stir.

Add some salt, pepper or chilli if needed.

Plate with corn, sweet potatoes, lettuce, etc. or just bring to the table in a tray and let your guests help themselves.

Be prepared to talk about ceviche for the rest of the evening. 😋

Credits: Photo by Pirata Studio Film on Unsplash