[1] Deconstructed ceviche at Seviche | Louisville.
[2] A trio of ceviches with different mixes of seafood and vegetables, from Chef Ingrid Hoffmann.
[3] Sea bass ceviche with traditional ingredients from Coya | London.
[4] Tiradito: a fusion preparation with sashimi-cut fish and a non-traditional garnish (fried capers), at Raymi | NYC.
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June 28th is National Ceviche Day, so let’s have some fun with it.
Ceviche is delicious “health food.”
Fish and seafood are high in protein.
Citrus juice is high in antioxidants including vitamin C; and is a good source of potassium and folate.
There’s no sugar or added fat.
Ceviche is low in calories. Most fish have 30-40 calories per ounce; shrimp and lobster have 30 calories, bay scallops 25 calories and octopus 35 calories per ounce. Other ingredients such as chile, cucumber, herbs, onion and tomato add negligible calories.
And perhaps most important to some:
Ceviche is not raw fish. The fish is cured by marinating in citrus juice.
The history of ceviche and delicious ceviche recipes are below.
DECONSTRUCTED CEVICHE
Seviche Restaurant in Louisville, Kentucky serves a different ceviche any day. While there are traditional presentations, they’ve also served it deconstructed (photo #1).
Instead of serving it traditionally—in a bowl or other container, resting in its marinade/curing liquid and topped with garnishes—the deconstruction in Photo #1 comprises:
Slices of cured fish set directly on a plate.
Topped with minced vegetables, instead of diced vegetables mixed in with the fish.
The marinade becomes a sauce, artistically place on the plate.
The plate is garnished with non-traditional garnishes—herbs, edible flowers, jicama, radishes, etc.—instead of cilantro or parsley, diced avocado, lime wedge or sliced onions.
THE DIFFERENCES AMONG RAW FISH DISHES
Carpaccio is Italian for raw fillet of beef, not fish. Crudo is the term for raw fish or seafood. You will find fish “crudo” on restaurant menus, but that doesn’t make it correct. While raw fish consumption is ancient, beef carpaccio was based on the Piedmont speciality, carne cruda all’albese (raw beef Alba-style), created by Giuseppe Cipriani, founder of Harry’s Bar in Venice. Using fine Piedmontese beef, he originally prepared it for a countess whose doctors had recommended that she eat raw meat. At the time, there was a local exhibition of the 15th-century Venetian painter Vittore Carpaccio; hence the name of the dish.
Ceviche, seviche or sebiche, from South America, is a marinated raw fish dish that date to pre-Colombian times. Then, seafood was “cooked” (acid-cured) with a fruit called tumbo (Passiflora tarminina, a relative of passionfruit). The Incas cured fish in salt and fermented corn. The Spanish brought onions limes, which are essential to today’s ceviche.
Crudo is analogous to sashimi—plain raw fish, although the fish is cut differently.
Escabeche is not raw, but seared fish (or meat) that is then marinated it in a vinegar-based sauce redolent of herbs and spices. As with ceviche, there is always an acidic marinade. It is served cold or at room temperature.
Poke is a Hawaiian dish that recently has made its way from coast to coast. A mix of raw fish and vegetables are served as an appetizer or salad course. It is different from tiradito or ceviche in that the fish is cubed with a soy sauce and sesame oil dressing, and Hawaiian garnishes like roasted crushed candlenut and limu seaweed, along with chopped chiles. It is pronounced poe-KEH. Here’s more about it.
Sashimi is Japanese-style sliced raw fish, generally served with a bowl of plain, steamed rice (not sushi rice, which is prepared with vinegar and sugar). The word literally means “pierced body.” No one is certain of the origin, but it may have come from the former practice of sticking the tail and fin of the fish on the slices, to let it be known which fish one was eating.
Tataki is a fillet of fish that is lightly seared: Just the surface is cooked, with the majority of the fish eaten in its raw state.
Tiradito is a more recent dish, fusing the concepts of ceviche and sashimi. Fish is sliced in pieces that are longer and thinner than sashimi. They are artfully arranged on a plate on top of a light sauce, and garnished (with cilantro, fresh corn kernels, thin slices of hot chile, etc.). The name derives from the Spanish verb tirar, which means to throw (i.e., throwing together raw fish with a sauce). Here’s a recipe.
Don’t worry if you can’t keep these straight: We saw a dish called carpaccio at New York City’s top seafood restaurant, that was clearly tiradito (with sauce and chile garnishes).
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A BRIEF HISTORY OF CEVICHE & TIRADITO
In South America, marinated raw fish dishes date to pre-Colombian times, when seafood was “cooked” (acid-cured) with a fruit called tumbo (Passiflora tarminina, a relative of passionfruit). The Incas cured fish in salt and fermented corn.
Ceviche—shellfish cured by acidic citrus juice—has been popular in Latin America for many centuries.
Read more at: https://www.thenibble.com/reviews/main/fish/seafood/shrimp-ceviche-recipe.asp
In the early 1500s, the Spaniards arrived with limes, onions and bell peppers, three essential ingredients in basic modern ceviche. Lime juice cured the fish, and marinating the sliced/diced onions and bell peppers that they mixed in with the seafood. Large kernels of roasted Inca corn were (and still are) a common garnish.
A chemical process occurs when the fish/shellfish is marinated in the highly acidic citrus juice, which denatures the protein. The result is similar to what happens when the fish is cooked with heat. Instead of “cooking,” however, the fish is cured in the marinade, which adds its own delicious flavors.
Both Ecuador and Peru claim to have originated ceviche: Both were part of the Incan Empire. But why quibble: Today, ceviche—or seviche or sebiche, depending on the country—is so popular that there are cevicherias, restaurants that specialize in ceviche.
The term “ceviche” is thought to come from the Spanish escabeche, meaning marinade. Others argue that the word comes from the Quechua (Incan) word siwichi. It may well be, although we could not find this word in the Quechua dictionary we consulted.
Ceviche is found in almost all restaurants on the coast of Peru, typically served with camote (sweet potato, which originated in Peru). It has been called “the flagship dish of coastal cuisine,” and is one of the most popular dishes in Peru [source].
Specialty restaurants, called cevicherias, abound.
Over time, fruits were incorporated; most popularly, tomatoes (native to Peru) and mango.
Today there’s a whole menu of ceviche, using difference types of fish and seafood and country-specific preparations. Each country adds its own spin based on local seafood and preference for ingredients like avocado. Some add a dressing of ketchup or a combination of ketchup and mayonnaise (think shrimp ceviche with cocktail sauce). For example:
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[5] Presentation in a Martini glass with plantain chips, at Elegant Affairs Caterers.
[6] A modern update garnished with fresh tarragon, fried Chinese noodles and a grilled lime wheel.
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Ecuadorian ceviche is served with popcorn.
Mexican ceviche includes a dice of onion and tomato—popular ingredient of salsa fresca. Traditional seasonings include chili powder, onions, garlic, cilantro and a little sea salt. Mackerel ceviche is popular, as are red snapper, sole and striped bass.
Panamanian ceviche includes hot sauce and is served with saltines.
Peruvian ceviche combines shrimp with native sweet potatoes and/or yucca, plus onion and the native aji amarillo chile. Cancha, large and crunchy Andean corn kernels that have been toasted and salted (i.e., corn nuts), are also added. The ingredients are marinated in the juice of a Peruvian lemon related to the Key lime. Ceviche is considered to be the national dish of Peru.
In 2023, the United Nations placed Peruvian ceviche on UNESCO’s list of intangible cultural heritage traditions, joining other icons like Neapolitan pizza and Korean kimchi.
THE HISTORY OF TIRADITO
The influx of Japanese immigrants to Peru in the 1970s brought with it chefs who cut and treated the fish in the manner of sashimi.
A fusion dish developed called tiradito, with seafood cut sashimi-style (but thinner and longer), a spicy dressing incorporating Peruvian chiles, and more elaborate garnishes.
CEVICHE, CEBICHE, SEBICHE, SEVICHE
Ceviche is variously spelled with a c or an s, with a v or a b.
In Peru, cebiche is the spelling in Lima; although ceviche is used elsewhere in the country, and is the most common internationally.
However, seviche was actually declared the proper spelling in 2004, by Peru’s National Institute of Culture.
Additionally, historical texts refer to the dish as seviche, including those by the Academia Peruana de la Lengua (Peruvian Language Academy), founded in 1887 [source].
Since even in its homeland, the national dish has multiple spellings, don’t argue with anyone over which one is “correct.”
MORE CEVICHE RECIPES
Lobster Ceviche recipe
Make Your Signature Ceviche Recipe
Shrimp Ceviche Recipe
Trout Ceviche Recipe
Wasabi Ceviche Recipe
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