Will You Marinate Me?
Wedding season is over for me this year, which means it’s time for a wrap-up (of the food of course, what else?) Two valuable notes:
I’ve noticed that sometimes it’s not a bad idea to order the veggie at a big event like this. They have to prepare far fewer of them, so often it’s something way more original. Check out the crazy layered concoction our one veggie friend got at Travis’ wedding (above), compared to the typical dry steak (below) served to the rest of the table.
At Coli’s wedding in Chi-town, the stand-out dish was the shrimp ceviche. (Am I behind the foodie times? Hadn’t heard of this before.) Now, shrimp is the one food left that my still developing taste buds can’t handle, yet I loved this dish. Somehow the citrus dulls the taste of the shrimp, which I usually find to be too strong. Or maybe it’s just that my taste buds themselves were dulled enough, since this was served quite awhile after cocktail hour started. Anyway, I clearly know eff-all about preparing shrimp, but can someone cook this for me please? FoodNetwork.com’s got a recipe.
I do a faux-shrimp ceviche that takes a lot of the prep time and guesswork out of dealing with the raw little buggers.
Most of the same ingredients, though I mix cooked salad shrimp (the tiny ones) with diced red peppers, avocado, red onion and a little bit of jalapeno. I season with cumin and cayenne pepper – but not too much of either. The marinade is mostly rice vinegar with some sea salt and the juice from 1 lime (unless it’s one of those dried out wastes of a lime that you sometimes get, in which case I supplement with squeeze-bottle lime juice).
Just mix everything together and let them sit in the fridge for an hour or two. Because the shrimp isn’t raw to begin with, you don’t have to worry about the citrus not having time to cure it.
Totally easy, and a pretty good imitation of the real deal. If you want to be too fancy by half, serve it in martini glasses and watch people get way excited by your upscale appetizer.
And if you get good and proficient with this stuff, you can move on to adding some easily-cured raw stuff like bay scallops (the little ones that look like mini marshmallows). At that point, you’ll want to add more acid (either the lime juice or the vinegar – it’s your call) and let it cure in the fridge for at least two hours to make sure you’re not sucking down completely raw scallops.
thanks j-hoya! this is def going on the (very lengthy) to-do list
I can’t help but smile at a request to have someone “cook” ceviche. God, I really am a foodie dork.
damnit. foiled again by joe hoya.
It’s really only a matter of time before you guys figure out a way to block me altogether, isn’t it? I’ve got to learn to keep my smart-ass mouth shut.
absolutely not! If we understand anything here at ES, it’s not being able to keep our mouths shut.
nice shameless plug there BS.
You may also want to check out Oyamel’s ceviche bar for an introduction to some really good ceviche. They’ve got four or five listed on their menu. I remember a great experience with their ceviche when they were in Crystal City, though I haven’t had a chance to visit since they moved into Penn Quarter.
I am also a fan of shrimp ceviche. I had a fantastic ceviche with shrimp, red onion, bay leaf and vinegar at an NC steeplechase; however my attempts to recreate the dish fell short which is unacceptable due to the aforementioned raw food issue. That said next time I visit DC I would like to be taken to Oyamel (hint hint), and I will do my best to try the ceviche and not be tempted by the Carnitas con salsa de tomatillo….