Ceviche and Aguachiles

[Jason Perlow]

Since moving to South Florida I have been getting a lot of exposure to Peruvian cuisine, and I am now a Ceviche-holic.

Ceviche goes so well with the warm weather and since it is essentially all protein and vegetables it's not particularly fattening either. So you can eat a ton of the stuff.

This is a shrimp ceviche I ate last week.

"Leche Del Tigre" a glass of highly chile and black pepper-laced "ceviche juice" coupled with pieces of seafood and fish cooked in ceviche. This is said to be an aphrodisiac.

Choros a la Chalaca. A ceviche-style dressing for Mussels, although the shellfish itself is cooked by sauteeing.

Peru and South American countries aren't the only ones with Ceviche. On the Pacific coast of Mexico, in Mazatlan, which is a city known for its shrimp fleet, the "Aguachile" style of ceviche is popular and abundant. This is also cooked with lime juice, but has a more fresh green Serrano chile pepper focus (the other, much more explosive one they use is called the Chiletecpin) as well as a cilantro-heavy flavor. The one shown above was eaten at "El Shrimp Bucket" one of the oldest operating restaurants in Mazatlan.

Ceviche is also popular in other areas of Central America and the Caribbean so there is a huge variety of types.

I would like to hear your recipes and do's and don'ts, as I have never cooked ceviche before, but I have access to really good local fresh shrimp at good prices and I would like to try.

Edited January 2, 2013 by Jason Perlow (log)

[LindaK]

That's some good looking ceviche, Jason.

For years, my ceviches were very simple--very fresh fish, some lime juice, chopped tomato and herbs, some chile.

Then I started cooking along here with Fiesta at Rick's and made some exceptional ceviches. It's made me more creative with my ceviche now. Here are old photos of two favorites:

Ceviche with avocado and herb, jalapeno, and roasted garlic paste:

Ceviche with orange and habanero:

They sure would taste good right now--if it wasn't 20F outside.

[IowaDee]

That post stirred up a lot of memories for me. Love everything about Mazatlan. Best shrimp ever- bought fresh from the

shrimp ladies in Centro or from the guys that come right to your hotel. Even the beach vendors sell cups of shrimp ceviche.

Son in law could live on the stuff but I like my shrimp cooked a bit and piled in an avocado half and washed down with a cold

Pacifico Or shrimp tacos in Machado Plaza.......

[Panaderia Canadiense]

Jason, it's probably worthwhile to note that the shrimp in shrimp ceviches (at least, every shrimp ceviche I've ever had in Colombia, Ecuador, or Perú) are precooked before being introduced to the ceviche broth.... It's a process only followed for shrimp and prawns, and when I've asked the cevicheros, I've always been told that the precooking solves an issue with food-borne bacteria that would otherwise make the ceviche dangerous to eat. Whenever I've made shrimp ceviche, I've always lightly steamed the shrimp before adding them in.

However, other seafoods (like, say, corvina, which makes a truly delectable ceviche) are added to the broth raw and allowed to "cook" over a period of between hours and days (depending on the seafood - octopus takes up to 5 days to get really tender).

[Chris Amirault]

The key step to seviche I learned -- can't remember where -- is that the citrus juice/acid that you use to marinate the fish must be discarded and a new one provided just before service. That includes aromatics: you want to discard the peppers, cilantro, garlic, whatever that you used as a marinade and provide new ones for clean flavors.