Classic Peruvian Cebiche

Ingredients for Peruvian classic Cebiche

• 1 k. of fresh white fish and wide loin. You can use corvina as in the course or other fish
• 6 files
• 2 purple onions cut in thin julienne
• 2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh coriander
• 1 tablespoon dessert type of rocoto or ají amarillo finely chopped (without seeds)
• Salt and freshly ground white pepper (to taste)
• For the garnish: maize corn (large grain) and 1 sweet potato

Making a Peruvian cebiche . Recently I attended a cebiches course taught by the chef Huber Mendoza.This great chef taught us how to prepare an  authentic ceviche, seviche, sebiche or ceviche in the classic style, with croaker.

The ceviche is a recipe for fish , seafood or both in citrus dressings. We can find thousands of versions depending on the Latin American country in which we find ourselves, although the one I present today is from Peru , the country of origin of this magnificent dish.

Within Peruvian cuisine you can find tiraditos, such as bachiche, white prawn or nikkei, they will not leave you indifferent. The different varieties of causes with their potatoes, the Lima or the disassembled, are to repeat again and again.

The treatment given to fish and shellfish is second to none, not only in Cebiche live Peruvian cuisine, we will also find tuna tartar, grilled octopus or seafood chaufa.

The possibilities with which they play with the meat, guinea pig (the known guinea pigs), hen, anticuchos, the kid or the calf, are among the best in the world. I forget thousands of their products, corn, ajís, sweet potato, yucca, chupe … little by little I will publish what I am learning in the courses I attend so that you can learn from my hand and that Peruvian cuisine Become one of your favorites.

I leave you with one of its easiest dishes, the classic ceviche with corvina, which you can substitute for other types of white fish, monkfish, black pompano, sole, grouper … the one you like the most. Let’s cook!

Preparation of fish for fish ceviche

1. The first step is to clean the fish, removing the hard parts and small pieces of leftover skin.
2. You can choose the white fish that you like the most, perch is a cheap option, although with monkfish or sole is also luxury. The choice is yours but it is very important that the fish is very fresh.
3. It is better not to use frozen fish. Although to free us from the danger of anisakis (to avoid parasitic problems), we can freeze fresh fish for 48 hours. After this time we let it thaw at room temperature before working with it.
4. We will use the loins of the fish. We review the fish loins in case they have a small spine or skin debris.
5. Once clean, we cut them with the knife, cutting strips or into medium dice, pieces of 1 – 1/2 cm. approximately.
6. We booked the fish in a large fountain.

Preparation of the garnish for the fish ceviche

1. We start with the garnish, wash the sweet potato well and cook it for 20 minutes over medium heat, since the water begins to boil.
2. We puncture it to verify that it is soft inside. We remove from the water and reserve.
3. In a separate saucepan, cook corn on the cob for 10 minutes, if you can not find fresh corn you can use dry.
4. Although you should leave it to soak with a good measure of water throughout the night. The corn should be tender, we can try it to see how it goes in cooking. We reserve
5. We cut the files in half and we have them ready to squeeze. With one of them we rub the bowl where we are going to prepare the ceviche.
6. Add the croaker to the bowl or source, add some ice cubes, so that the fish is as cold as possible for as long as possible.
7. Add fine salt (to taste), freshly ground white pepper and rocoto finely chopped without seeds (if you can not find it you can use chili or yellow pepper).
8. In most Latin establishments you can find frozen yellow pepper and chilli, or these in pasta. I recommend that you give that spicy point, it is the grace of our ceviche.
9. We squeeze the limes over the bowl where we have our ingredients. Always with the hand avoiding that the seeds fall and squeezing them only until the half so that it does not become bitter.
10. Always in any elaboration with lemon or limes we must squeeze by hand and smoothly so that the juice does not bitter, nothing of electric or manual squeezers.

Final preparation and presentation of the fish ceviche

1. We remove 1 minute until everything is well integrated. When the fish begins to take color taste test and rectify salt if necessary.
2. The fish will be cooked with the citrus, and we will check that its meat goes white, the citric acid from the files will modify the proteins of the fish to leave them in their point.
3. We cut the coriander very thin, gently so as not to crush it and add. We remove the ice cubes from the bowl.
4. The last step will be to cut the purple onion into thin julienne. We divide it in half.
5. Remove the outer layer, place half on the board and make the thin cuts. Once cut, we wash it well on a sieve to remove the bitterness.
6. So that the onion is not pocha but rather crispy, we add it directly to our ceviche at the last moment before serving.
7. Let stand in the fridge for 10 minutes until the fish is well white.
8. We only have to serve our ceviche on the plate that we have reserved cold in the fridge with a cold beer.
9. Peel the sweet potato and cut some thick slices. We shelled the cob of corn.
10. Place a little of the corvina marinated, red onion on top, and accompany the sweet potato and corn grains.