DJ and Luis eat stuff

Right. So, I slept in deliciously late (still on my quasi-vacation from work), then went to work cooking up lunch. I had a substantial quantity of fatty-tuna ceviche kicking around from the previous day (recipe at the bottom of this post), but that wasn't a complete meal. I dug up some tomatoes I had bought at the market yesterday, along with some leftover mozzarella and made an italian salad. I also had some mixed greens in the fridge, so it was a hybrid salad in the end. Last night, I had soaked a cup of mung beans, thinking to do something with them today, but without realizing two things:

1. Mung beans are like lentils and don't need to be pre-soaked.
2. Once soaked or cooked, they double in size

The result was that I had a TON of somewhat over-soft beans this morning. I took out one cup of them for cooking and put the rest away in the fridge for the time being (I'll make curry with them tomorrow). Then, in a saucepan, I mixed together 1 cup of brown basmati rice, 1 cup of mung beans, a ton of garlic, a generous tablespoon of ground cumin, and a similar amount of chopped cilantro; this was a sort of approximation of my mom's "green rice," although she usually adds chimichurri as well.

DJ came over, wine in hand, and the foodie fun began. We did honour to the French tradition of leisurely lunches, taking a whopping 4 hours to eat salad, have the ceviche and rice, have some yogurt for dessert, have a round of coffee, have some pastis and water as an apéritif, etc. Good times for all.

So, to close out this post, here's a recipe for the Peruvian version of ceviche (note: there are as many versions are there are mothers in Peru).

Ceviche (Seviche, Cebiche) Peruano

Ingredients

• Some very tasty fish or other seafood. About 500 grams should do it
• A lot of limes--about 15. You can substitute half as many lemons if you need to.
• 2 bitter oranges--hard to find, but worth it. In Europe, try shopping for it in Chinatown areas. In the US, try mexican grocery stores.
• 3-5 cloves of garlic, crushed or chopped finely (you can add more or less to taste)
• a heaping tablespoon of grated or chopped ginger (not ground)
• 1-3 finely chopped hot peppers (remove seeds and veins if you want it less hot)
• One large white onion, chopped into fine half-rounds.
• Salt & Pepper to taste
• A tablespoon of ají amarillo (optional)
• chopped cilantro to taste (optional, but why not?)

Preparation

1. Essentially, mix everything together in a non-reactive container and marinate to necessary doneness. What follows is mere details.
2. Wash the fish and then cut into 2cm cubes. You can also cut them into hair-thin slices if you like and thus make tiraditos instead of ceviche, but this should only be done with very fresh, very tender fish that you can serve immediately.
3. If you wish, you can soak the fish in salt water for an hour. This will help the fish keep it's shape if it's too tender otherwise.
4. Once the fish has been mixed with the ceviche preparation, you can marinate or serve immediately, depending on the kind of seafood and the desired results. Tender-fleshed fish will get a bit tough after long marinating, so serve after 30 minutes of marinating. Tough-fleshed seafood like shark meat, octopus, calamari, and all shellfish should marinate overnight.

NOTE: while the acid in the ceviche mix "cooks" the fish raw, it doesn't kill 100% of microbes and/or parasites, so it's best to use only high-grade (sashimi-grade) fish. Alternately, you can freeze the fish overnight to kill everything, but that often does funny things to the texture.