Every "summer", I have 4 staples I enjoy making. Shrimp ceviche, pico de gallo, guacamole, and sangria. Being late July/already August, I still had not made any of them. I decided to divide them into 2 parts, starting with the avocado based items: shrimp ceviche and guacamole.
Ceviche is one of those recipes that's accessible, but refined. It uses few ingredients, with opportunities for variations. The base of this recipe is traditionally raw fish, lime/lemon juice, onion, and some kind of chili pepper. The fish is marinated in the lime/lemon juice, and the premise is that the citrus juice "cooks" the fish. What actually happens is the acidic juice changes the texture of raw fish, from soft/slimy to more solid and condensed. It does not actually kill any bacteria.
For my ceviche, I use precooked, deveined, tail on frozen shrimp for my seafood base. Not because I'm scared, but because I'm cheap. And I like shrimp.
Gather 'round.
1 bag of frozen shrimp. Tails yanked off, they soak in about 1/4 cup of lime juice for about an hour. But you could marinate them anywhere from 30 min to 8 hours.
I chopped up a small red onion, whose bite was much bigger than it's bark. Loud and clear, onion. Loud and clear.
Some people have drugs. I have this.
After marinating, I took the shrimp out, and drained it. Since I only use 1/4 cup lime juice (which comes out to be 2-3 limes for me), the shrimp soaks it up a bit, but leaves a little puddle leftover. But if you wanted to leave the extra lime juice, you could. You rebel.
The amalgamation commences, and includes: sea salt, black pepper, a splash of olive oil, along with my drugs: chopped grape tomatoes, 1 minced jalapeno, 1/2 small red onion, and plenty of chopped cilantro.
Give it a stir. Add more lime juice (1/2 - 1 lime perhaps.) If you're me, add more black pepper. Taste it. Be blown away by bright pops of cilantro and lime, the plump sweetness of the shrimp and the tomato, the heat of the jalapeno, the delightful pungency of the red onion! Unless you're some kind of a fool, you will dice up avocado and put it on top. Not only does it add richness, but avocados are awesome and nothing more needs to be said about that.
You could eat it with a spoon. You could eat it with chips. You could throw some greens in there and make a ceviche salad. Some people add tomato sauce, hot sauce, corn, cucumber and any other refreshing/vibrant/spicy thing you can think of.
I only used half of my drug plate for the ceviche, saving the rest for the guacamole. I'm crafty with my vices.
Things of beauty.
For this recipe, I used 2 larger avocados. Next time I will use 3 or maybe even 4 because if it were possible to drink guacamole, I probably would. I then added sea salt, black pepper, a healthy amount of garlic powder, cumin, coriander, juice of at least 2 limes, cayenne pepper, and got this:
You might be wondering what the white crumbles on the top are. I might respond that they are blue cheese crumbles, and I will not make guacamole without them ever, ever again.
