Ceviche: an appetizer of small pieces of raw fish marinated in lime or lemon juice, often with onions, peppers, and spices.
This is for my daughter Polly and any readers who like ceviche as much as she does. I’ve made ceviche before, but not for a long time. When the craving hit, I put this together from memory, using shrimp and bay scallops instead of fish. Here’s how it turned out:
My first cookbook photo! Not very creative, though . . . I should have placed the bowl on an old serape or something. So how’s it made? That’s easy:
Ingredients
- 1 ½ lbs shrimp, shelled, tail off, deveined
- ½ lb small bay scallops
- ½ cup cilantro, finely chopped
- ½ cup red onion, coarsely chopped
- 1 large tomato, seeded & coarsely chopped
- 1-2 jalapeño peppers, finely chopped
- 2 cups lime juice
- ¼ cup olive oil
- ½ tsp salt
Directions
Rinse the shrimp & scallops, drain, and put in a bowl. Add the other ingredients and gently mix so that everything’s coated with lime juice. Cover the bowl and place in refrigerator overnight. In the morning dump the ceviche in a colander to drain the liquid, then return the ceviche to the bowl. Serve cold with tortilla chips and your favorite hot sauce.
Notes
I used frozen 91-110 size shrimp from Safeway – they come in a 2-lb bag. You can use any firm white fish instead of scallops, or even chopped calamari. Purists say to use only fresh-squeezed lime juice, but I find that store-bought lime juice works just as well.
Eating ceviche is the next best thing to being on the beach in Puerto Vallarta!