Ceviche de Pescado: Two Ways

Helga Glaesel de Blandingagosto 25, 2010

This post is also available in ENGLISH (INGLÉS)

I made this for my mom and husband last weekend. We were in the mood for something fresh, so we made Ceviche.

Ceviche is a very popular dish in Latin American countries. It consists of raw seafood being marinated in a lot of lemon juice. Since the seafood is not cooked with heat, but with the acid in the lemon juice, it is imperative to use fresh fish, shrimp, or whatever kind or seafood you want to use. You can mix your ceviche with fish and shrimp, or scallops, calamari…. Whatever you want.

I made two versions, which are the most popular ones. The traditional one with tomatoes is the most common type, we added some shrimp to that one. The other one, which is the Peruvian Ceviche (my favorite) has jalapeños in it, so it can be quite hot. This type is always made with red onion, and served with sweet potatoes.

Ceviche de Pescado: Two Ways
Serves: 4

Ingredients:

Tomato (Guatemalan) Version:

3 tomatoes, finely chopped
½ white onion, finely chopped
1 small cilantro bunch, finely chopped
1 lb fresh fish, such as snapper or corvina
1/2 lb shrimp (optional)

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Peruvian Version:

2 sweet potatoes, cooked and cubed
½ red onion, sliced
1 jalapeño pepper
1 small cilantro bunch, chopped
1 lb fresh fish, such as snapper or corvina

1 1/2 cups of lemon juice
Salt and pepper, to taste
2 teaspoons freshly grated ginger

Procedure:

Cut the fish into cubes
In a deep ceramic, or glass bowl: Add the fish cubes (the whole 2 lbs used for both versions) and the cup of lemon juice, and salt and pepper to taste. About 1 teaspoonful. In a small bowl, put the shrimp and add the remaining lemon juice. Use enough to cover them, if you need to squeeze some more lemon juice, do so. Put the bowls in the refrigerator and let the fish and shrimp sit for at least 1 hour, to let them “cook” in the lemon juice.
Meanwhile, in a small pot of boiling water cook your chopped onion for about 3 minutes. You can use your onions raw, but personally I prefer to cook them a little bit first to take that excess oniony flavor out.
Do the same in a different pot with your red onion.
The Peruvian version calls for chopped jalapeños. Use rubber gloves or sandwich bags in your hands when cutting this pepper, otherwise it will burn your skin. If you take all the seeds and veins out, it won’t be hot at all. You can leave some in for a little spice, or you can just slice it as it is and incorporate it into the Peruvian version bowl. (This version is supposed to be hot)

Mixing the Ceviches:

For the Tomato Version:

1. In a medium sized bowl, mix the “cooked” fish, tomato, white onion and cilantro. Add some of the lemon in which the fish was cooked. If you are using shrimp, add them. Serve. (Let each person adjust the amount of salt to their liking) I am allergic to shrimp, so we kept them in a separate bowl the whole time and my mom and husband just added them to their individual bowls.

For the Peruvian Version:

2. In a medium sized bowl, mix the “cooked” fish, sweet potato cubes, red onion, cilantro and jalapeño. Add some of the lemon in which the fish was cooked. Serve. (Let each person adjust the amount of salt to their liking)

Typical ways of accompanying Ceviche, is to serve with one, or all of the following dressings so each person can add them to their liking: