Peruvian fish cebiche recipe prepared with fresh fish, limes, onions, spicy peppers, and cilantro. Served with boiled corn, sweet potato, plantain chips, and/or cancha or Andean corn nuts
Course Appetizer, Ceviches
Cuisine Latin, Peruvian, South American
Keyword Cebiche, Ceviche, Fish
Prep Time 20 minutesminutes
Total Time 30 minutesminutes
Servings 6servings, as an appetizer
Ingredients
1 ½poundsvery fresh and high quality fish filetscorvina, halibut, escolar, hamachi, mahi-mahi
1red onionthinly sliced
1cupfreshly squeezed lime juicefrom about 35- 40 key limes, or 15-20 Peruvian limes
1-2habanero pepperscut in half, without seeds and deveined
Cut the fish into small cubes, place in a glass bowl and cover with cold water and 1 tablespoon of salt, cover and refrigerate while you prepare the onions and juice the limes.
Rub the thin onion slices with 1/2 tablespoon of salt and rinse in cold water.
Rinse the fish to remove the salt
Place the cubes of fish, half of the sliced onions, and hot peppers in a glass bowl and pour the lime juice over the ingredients. Sprinkle with a little bit of salt. To minimize the acidity of the limes you can put a few ice cubes in the mix.
Cover and refrigerate for about 5-15 minutes.
Remove the cilantro sprigs and the hot peppers from the mix. Taste the fish ceviche and add additional salt if needed.
Use a spoon to place the ceviche in each serving bowl, add additional sliced onions to each bowl, sprinkle with finely chopped cilantro, and diced or sliced hot peppers.
Serve immediately with your choice of sides and garnishes.
Notes
Soaking the fish in cold salt water helps it keep a firm texture.
Rinsing the onions with salt and cold water helps remove their bitterness.
Adding ice cubes to the cebiche mix helps neutralize the acidity of the limes – this is especially true for the South American limon sutil variety, but less needed for the Mexican limes found in the US.