Ceviche | I Can Cook That

Note: I attended a tasting of Ripe Life Wines at Spring Lake Seafood and received additional bottles of Ripe Life Wine in order to make this Homemade Ceviche. Opinions are mine alone.

Before I go into the Homemade Ceviche recipe, I want to highlight a wine company that I recently tried and love. If you follow me on Instagram, you may have seen that I went to a wine tasting of Ripe Life Wines at Spring Lake Seafood in Spring Lake, NJ. I was given the opportunity to try a bunch of Ripe Life Wines’ selection paired with delicious food offerings of Spring Lake Seafood.

Ripe Life Wines grew from owner Mary McAuley’s desire to create the perfect wine for a clambake, and the Clambake Unoaked Chardonnay was born. The company now offers its Clambake Unoaked Chardonnay, a Clambake Rosé, a seafood-friendly red called Fisherman’s Red, and Moules Blanc de Blancs Brut, a dry American sparkling wine.

You can pop into Spring Lake Seafood in Spring Lake, NJ or Dock and Claw in Beach Haven, NJ to enjoy a tasting. To see my experience at Spring Lake Seafood, including the yummy food pairings, you can see that here and here.) The food and win pairings really are not to be missed!

For this post, I wanted to highlight Ripe Life Wines’ OG. The Clambake Unoaked Chardonnay. Chardonnay is commonly “oaked,” in which the wine is aged in oak barrels, resulting in flavors of butter, vanilla, or caramel. Unoaked Chardonnay, like the Clambake Chardonnay, is instead aged in stainless steel barrels, resulting in a lighter, crisp, clean finish that doesn’t compete with the delicate flavors of seafood. Clambake Chardonnay has a lovely lemon/apple/pear flavor to it, making it the perfect accompaniment to both raw seafood dishes, and richer seafood dishes such as lobster and clams with drawn butter.

As soon as I had my first sip of the Clambake Chardonnay, I knew I wanted to try to pair it with a homemade ceviche.

Ceviche, originating in South America, is a dish consisting of diced raw seafood that has marinated in acid (typically lime juice) to “cook” the seafood. The seafood is then mixed with onions, cilantro, and other ingredients to create a colorful and flavorful dish. Although homemade ceviche can sound a little intimidating, it’s actually really easy to make at home! My knife skills aren’t great, so if yours aren’t as well, the recipe will turn out just fine.

Ingredients (serves 4 as an appetizer):

1 Fresno pepper
2 tablespoons olive oil, divided
1 teaspoon salt, divided
16 oz halibut, cut into bite sized pieces
1 avocado, chopped
1 peach, chopped
3/2 cup cilantro, minced
1/4 cup red onion, finely chopped
1/3 cup fresh lime juice (2-3 limes)
1/2 cup fresh orange juice (~4 oranges)
corn tortilla chips, for serving

Continue reading Homemade Ceviche

I’m really on a canape/appetizer kick. I used these Jalapeno Parmesan crisps to make canapes with Black Bean Mango Salsa on top, but really wanted to make something with shrimp incorporated in it. I found this Cooking Light recipe for Ceviche de Camaron and used it as a base for this recipe for Shrimp Ceviche on Jalapeno Parmesan Crisps. Traditional ceviche is usually fresh raw fish marinated in lemon or lime juice. I actually steamed the shrimp before marinating them in the lime, so it is not an actual ceviche, but the general idea of it is still present.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup chopped red onion
6 cups water
3/4 cup fresh lime juice, divided
1 pound medium shrimp
1 cup chopped peeled cucumber
1/4 cup ketchup

1/4 cup mild taco sauce
1/3 cup chopped fresh cilantro
1 teaspoon sriracha or other hot sauce
1 tablespoon olive oil

1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1/4 teaspoon salt

Jalapeno Parmesan Crisps (Kitchen Table Bakers)

I didn’t read the recipe correctly before buying my ingredients, so I actually asked the seafood place to peel and devein the shrimp. Well, the original recipe required boiling the shrimp and then peeling them, so I had to change it up a bit. Click the link above for the original recipe if you’d like.

Bring 6 cups of water with 1/4 cup fresh lime juice to a boil in a large pot. When boiling, add the shrimp to a steam basket and place on top. Cover and cook for 3 minutes.

Remove the shrimp and combine with 1/2 cup juice, plus the zest from the limes, in a large bowl.

Cover and refrigerate for 1 hour.

While waiting for the hour to pass, chop your onion, cucumber, and cilantro. Take the chopped onion and rinse with cold water in a colander.

Add the onion to a medium bowl. Stir in the cucumber, ketchup, taco sauce, cilantro, hot sauce, olive oil, Worcestershire sauce and salt.

Refrigerate until the hour has passed for the shrimp. When the hour is finished, stir in the shrimp and lime juice.

Top each Parmesan crisp with one shrimp and a teaspoon of the onion cucumber mixture.

Aren’t these fun?

So I realized after taking these photos that the shrimp still had their tails. I wouldn’t suggest serving the shrimp on the crisps with the tails on.

However, if you serve the ceviche in a bowl or wine glass with the crisps on the side, keep the tails on for presentation.

The shrimp managed to maintain a really nice citrus flavor despite being pre-cooked.

The cocktail sauce on the shrimp had a nice spice but didn’t deliver much heat (the Parmesan crisps were spicy enough for me) so if you like it really spicy, add a bit more hot sauce.

I did think corn kernels would go great with this as well. Next time I make it, I think I’d throw in some frozen thawed corn kernels for extra texture.