Around The World To Peru

Christmas week dishes and the need to lose an additional 10 lbs before my hip replacement, following my doctor visit, resulted in my missing the week for my planned around-the world meal.  After looking harder at my list, I decided to go to Peru where ceviche (low-cal and protein rich) is one of the traditional dishes.

While I had heard of ceviche over the last several years, it was not until our RV trip to Arizona last winter that I got up the nerve to try it – for some reason cooked with citrus wasn’t computing for me and Bev still has not tried it.  As it turned out, I really enjoyed it but had yet to make it until now.

I looked around the web and found a recipe on All Recipes for Ceviche Peruano and decided to give it a try and I liked that it was sided with sweet potatoes.  I basically followed the recipe except halved it as shown below and omitted the heat plus I used the fish I had on hand and omitted the white potato.

Ceviche Peruano – adapted from All Recipes

Ingredients:

1 potatoes

1 sweet potato

½ red onion, cut into thin strips

½ cup fresh lime juice

1/4 stalk celery, sliced

1/8 cup lightly packed cilantro leaves

1 pinch ground cumin

½ clove garlic, minced

1 habanero pepper, seeded and minced

Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

½ pound fresh tilapia crappie, cut into 1/2-inch pieces

½ pound large Royal Red shrimp - peeled, deveined, and cut into 1/2-inch pieces

Romaine lettuce leaves 1 bibb or Boston lettuce, separated into leaves

Directions:

1. Place the potatoes and sweet potato in a saucepan and cover with water. Simmer until the potato is easily pierced with a fork, then drain, and set aside to cool to room temperature. Place the sliced onion in a bowl of warm water, let stand 10 minutes, then drain and set aside.

2. Meanwhile, place the lime juice, celery, cilantro, and cumin into the bowl of a blender, and puree until smooth. Pour this mixture into a large glass bowl, and stir in the garlic and habanero pepper. Season with salt and pepper, then stir in the diced crappie and shrimp.

3. Set aside to marinate for an hour, stirring occasionally. The seafood is done once it turns firm and opaque.

4. To serve, peel the potatoes and cut into slices. Stir the onions into the fish mixture. Line serving bowls with lettuce leaves. Spoon the ceviche with its juice into the bowls and garnish with slices of potato.

I enjoyed the flavor of the dish but both the shrimp and the fish were pretty chewy.  I had it once before in a restaurant and can’t remember if it was also chewy but after two tries I now know I prefer the Mexican Ceviche I had in Tucson, which has tomato juice in it, and it will be my next version.

Photos can be enlarged by clicking on them and the blue words are links.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

12/29/19 event date