Olé!

Posted on | Wednesday, May 18, 2011 | No Comments

I decided to be a little daring and try a new recipe today: ceviche (pronounced suh-VEE-chay)! I've heard of using acid to cook fish, but I never thought to try it myself. It seemed like it would, well, taste weird. I know that technically speaking it's cooked, but I couldn't shake the whole "cooked in acid" thing. It just seemed too strange, and maybe a little bit gross.


And then I remembered -- I've eaten raw fish (octopus included) and a plethora of other strange foods (hello candied grasshoppers, chicken feet, and escargot) didn't even bat an eye. Might as well live a little. Upon searching the internet for a good recipe I found one that seemed simple and had gotten fairly good reviews.


The list of ingredients is easy enough -- raw fish (I had flounder on hand, but red snapper and other fish do just as nicely), lemon juice, onion, diced tomatoes, oregano, tabasco sauce, and a pinch of salt. Other recipes call for different ingredients but I figured simplier would be better for the first go around.


Chop the fish into small pieces and add the lemon juice, enough to cover the fish. Be sure to use a ceramic or pyrex dish -- this stuff is corrosive! Add in the diced onions and tomatoes along with a good dash of salt and oregano.


Oh, and this stuff. Tabasco sauce is wonderful on fish. And just about everything else. That and cayenne pepper. Yum.


Stir everything together and let it marinate in the fridge for several hours, mixing it occasionally so that the fish gets even coverage on all sides (or is that "cooked" on all sides?). It's hard to set an exact time for how long this takes, but the easiest way to tell if the fish is done is by how it looks. It will go from a pinkish/white translucent color to fully opaque. Mine took about two and a half hours.


Then it was the moment of truth, the taste test. It was amazingly scrumptious. Spicy yet cool and refeshing. The onions had lost some of their intensity during the marinating process. The fish tasted tangy and.. it's hard to explain exactly. It didn't taste raw, but it didn't taste cooked either. And while it was strange, it was certainly the good kind of strange. The "Hm, that's good. I want another bite." strange.

It was especially delightful when the ceviche was wrapped in a cabbage leaf. They also recommend sliced avocado or warmed tortillas. How delicious! Next time I make this I'm going to to tinker with the recipe a bit more and see if I can make even better.

Category:

Comments

About

Photobucket I was born and raised in California. I have also lived in Hungary, Texas, Alabama, Oklahoma, and I will be moving again this summer. Kael is my incredibly awesome kiddo who is growing up far too quickly, and Alex is my fiance who makes me happier than should be legally allowed. I write about them a lot. I'm mildly obsessed with cooking and photography. I write about those things, too.

Followers