Ceviche

Have you ever heard of Ceviche? Traditionally it is a Seafood dish where fresh raw seafood is marinated in lime juice to “cook” it. Usually it also has peppers, tomatoes and other things added to it so it is almost like a seafood salsa. It is delicious!

We don’t actually use raw seafood in our family. The thought is just a bit hard for me to get by. Although I did have it that way once and it was good too. We used precooked imitation crab, and precooked shrimp. My family likes to eat it by scooping it up with tortilla chips. That is really good. Since chips are not very healthy, I like to eat it out of a bowl with a spoon, kind of like a cold soup. Mmmmm. It is so good, and healthy.

It is a fairly new dish for our family. Kayla learned how to make Ceviche from watching her boyfriend’s mother make it. Actually, she didn’t learn directly from her. Kayla said she couldn’t get the recipe out of her. So Kayla did a little searching on the internet until she came by a ceviche recipe that was similar to what she had seen made. She then tweaked the recipe just a bit so it was pretty close to her boyfriend’s mother’s recipe. Kayla makes fabulous ceviche.

I tried making my own version of ceviche a few days ago, since Kayla wasn't home. I have to admit it was really good too. Although Kayla thought I messed up a few things. Apparently I am not supposed to put onions in it, and I cut the avocados too small, I cut the seafood too big, and I used the wrong kind of peppers. But it was really good anyway. I’m sure there is more than one way to make ceviche.

I’ll share the recipe with you. But I don’t have an actual recipe. I’ll just tell you how I made it. And then if you want to do internet searches to get an actual recipe you can. Remember this is kind of my way I did it. Kayla might disagree with some of it.

This will make a large bowl of it. Start with a whole bunch of tomatoes, about 8-12. Dice them up pretty small. Use about 5 serrano chilies, deseeded. Dice them up really small. (I used an Anaheim pepper and a jalappeno pepper, Kayla said that was wrong.) Be careful when working with the chilies. You might want to protect your hands with plastic gloves or sandwich baggies. Every time I skip this, my fingers really hurt a while after I am done. I can’t tell I am burning my skin when I am cutting them, but they really hurt later. Use a lot of cilantro, chopped up. I used about ½ of a bunch. But more might have been good. I love cilantro! Squeeze about 3 limes into the mix. I put a fair amount of onion in, cut small. Red or green would be good, unless you are like Kayla, and would rather skip the onion altogether. Dice up some avocado, maybe two. Kayla prefers larger chunks of this. I did mine small. Either way is good. Then put in corn. Kayla uses canned, I used frozen. Put in cooked shrimp and imitation crab, cut into chunks. Kayla says they should be kind of small. Pour on some Clamato juice. Don’t make it too juicy. Add salt, pepper, and oregano. I hope I am not forgetting anything. I think celery or cucumber would be good in it, but I haven’t tried it yet.
This is good right away, and even better then next day!