Noelle's Noms: Cevich-eh?

Per a Facebook request, this week's blog is both light and summery and, well... ceviche. Ceviche (suh-vee-chey) is a Spanish dish of raw seafood marinated in lime/lemon juice. Hold up... RAW?!? Don't fret. The acid in the citrus lends to a process called denaturing. In essence, the acid "cooks" the seafood so that it's no longer raw.

My Aunt Debie first introduced me to ceviche. To this day, her recipe is still my favorite. I've had many variations but hers is very straight forward, simple and delicious. It's a great base recipe that's completely modifiable. The original recipe calls for shrimp only but for this post, I made a combination of shrimp and bay scallops. We've also made this with halibut and I've had it with octopus as well. You can also add different vegetables or fruit. Ceviche with mango is FANTASTIC!

What's also great is there are so many serving options. You can eat this with Tostitos or Fritos Scoops, crackers or pita chips, or you can toss it with some lettuce and eat it as a salad or just grab a fork and eat it straight.

Debie's Ceviche
5 or 6 lemons
6 or 7 limes
2 pounds raw seafood (1lb shrimp, 1lb bay scallops, for example)
1 red or orange bell pepper, diced, seeds and ribs removed
1 or 2 jalapenos, diced, seeds and ribs removed (to desired heat level)
1 medium tomato, diced
1/2 yellow onion, diced
1 clove garlic, minced or 1t of minced jarred garlic
1 whole bunch cilantro, diced
Salt and pepper to taste

Juice lemons and limes and put juice in a medium sized bowl. I prefer to add 1-2 more limes than lemons b/c I like having a decidedly lime flavor. This much fruit will yield approximately 1.5-2 cups of juice depending on how big/juicy your limes/lemons are.

To help your fruit release its juice, roll them on your cutting board giving them a little bit of pressure with your palm. Rachel Ray also recommends putting your citrus in the microwave for 10 seconds to help soften them.

This is a fantastic juicing tool.

This is a better juicing tool.

Having both in your kitchen is preferred. The manual tool for juicing just a few pieces of citrus. The electronic one for making recipes like this. I first purchased mine a few years ago when I was asked to make 20 pounds of a citrus based shrimp dish for my friend Cathie's wedding. I got mine at Bed Bath & Beyond for about $30. Tip: place a slightly damp towel under the juicer to keep it from slipping. (Also works great under cutting boards!)

Peel, devein and rinse shrimp. Rinse bay scallops. Dice the seafood and add to the bowl of juice. You want to make sure there's enough juice to cover all the seafood. If not, add a little more juice. (My mom and aunt like to cut bigger bites of seafood, but the smaller the dice, A) the easier it is to eat with a Tostitos Scoop, B) the better mix of ingredients you get in each scoop, and C) the more surface area you expose to the acid the faster the denaturing process.)

Place your bowl in the fridge for several hours until the seafood is no longer raw. If using shrimp, the tell tale pink color is a good visual. I can't tell you an exact time. I put my mixture into the fridge at 9:30am, and then didn't mess with it until 5:30 that evening but I have no idea when it was actually ready. If you stir the mixture every so often, that also speeds up the denaturing process.