Ceviche With Lime-Coconut Rice
Or how I navigated Porto's fish market with semi-successful results
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I’ve had ceviche on my recipe development list for an age but I wanted to wait until I’d moved to Porto where there is an excellent fresh fish market.
No time like the present. I diligently got up early this week and headed to the municipal fish market in the nearby seaside town of Matosinhos.
Living in a country where you don’t (yet) speak much of the language humbles you. It makes you realize how much of a privilege it is just to understand what’s going on. I knew the fish market would be a challenge because, unlike much of Portugal, many market vendors don’t speak much English. And my Portuguese lessons don’t start until October.
On the way, I practiced in my best Portuguese accent (which is the hardest part of learning this language):
Um dorado e um robalo, por favor. É possível filetar? (One dorada and one seabass please. Is it possible to fillet?)
It took me about 20 minutes of walking around the market before I built up the courage to talk to one of the, admittedly very nice, women working one of the stalls. I felt completely out of my comfort zone. This is an exercise that in an Anglophone country would be a total non-event. Here, it was so nerve-wracking, I was flooded with adrenaline the second I had the fish in my hands.
It was… semi-successful. I got my fish. The filleting was harder. Here, filleting means preparing fish for grilling because that’s the way they traditionally cook it. In fact, at this particular market you can buy the fish from the stalls and take it to one of the nearby restaurants where they’ll cook it for you.
My fish was gutted and prepared for the grill whole, which meant no filleting.
My Portuguese failed me here so I took the fish as is. There was a lot of swearing and wrangling of fish when I got home.
But hey! I had fresh fish — only hours old — asked for in my terrible Portuguese, and sold by a very nice lady.
I achieved my very small but extremely satisfying goal.
Like I say. Living in a different country humbles you.
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For those of you unaccustomed to ceviche, it’s a Peruvian dish where raw fish is cured in lime juice. Often it’s mixed with fresh salad vegetables like red onion, cucumber, tomato, coriander, and chilli.
The result was an extremely satisfying lunch enjoyed in the Portuguese sun.
If the thought of cured fish is enough to put you off your breakfast —or you don’t live anywhere close to a fresh fish source — I’ve included plenty of variations for other types of ceviche that you probably shouldn’t call ceviche in Peru but we will here.
Ceviche is normally made with white fish. It goes without saying but use the freshest fish you can find, bought from a trusted source. Please check with your fishmonger if your fish of choice can be eaten raw.
If you can’t find fresh fish where you live, check out the variations section for other options.
The fish gets firmer the longer you leave it in the lime juice. I tinkered with different curing times and for my fish, the timing seemed to be perfect at 1 hour 15 minutes of curing time.
Serves 3-4 for lunch