Summer is Meant for Ceviche
I’ve never been shy of eating raw fish. And if you want a light, cool and refreshing meal on a hot summer’s night, raw fish fits the bill.
When I don’t go for sushi, I go for ceviche. A little lemon or lime juice and fresh fish, maybe some chopped jalapeno—what more could I want?
Here’s a recipe that takes ceviche a little farther than that, and maybe farther than it needs to go. I mean, this has a lot more ingredients than most ceviche. Stranger still, it has cheese in it.
I personally would leave out the cheese. But this may be a good starter ceviche for people who don’t want to look at a plate of just plain raw fish (even though a soak in the citrus juice will actually give the seafood a cooked appearance).
If raw seafood is just too much, go ahead and lightly poach the shrimp and scallops before marinating them.
Southwest Seafood Ceviche Salad
1/2 cup combination of fresh lime and lemon juice with, if you’d like, pinch of sweet chili sauce (or without the sweet, Tabasco pepper sauce)
2 teaspoons each coarse ground sea salt and black pepper
1 medium onion, minced
1/2 pound sea scallops
1/2 pound medium shrimp, peeled and deveined
Combine all ingredients in porcelain dish, making sure shellfish is completely immersed in juice. Cover the dish and refrigerate 4 hours until shellfish is opaque. (If shrimp and scallops are poached, cut the time to 2 hours.) Drain and combine with the following:
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon minced cilantro
¼ pound (1 cup) Jarlsberg cheese, cubed
½ cup chopped jicama or yellow pepper
1 15-ounce can black beans, thoroughly rinsed, drained and dried
2 cups chopped Romaine lettuce
Top with fried tortilla strips (or have tortilla chips alongside) and serve with guacamole and salsa.
Note: For this dish, you can also use ¼ pound each scallops and shrimp with ½ pound tuna or swordfish, cut into bite-size pieces.
