At this point in the summer, all I want is a fan blowing cool air in my face at all times and for every meal to involve chilled seafood. I’ll take fresh-shucked oysters or seafood towers overflowing with crab legs and shrimp, but ceviche is my preferred dish. Its many adaptations make it possible to eat nearly every day without getting bored.
A traditionally Peruvian dish that involves marinating seafood in citrus with other ingredients, ceviche has since been adopted across Latin America and the Caribbean, with plenty of L.A. restaurants making their own sought-after renditions.
It’s an easy dish to make at home and its flavors only intensify in the day or two after making it. Virgilio Martinez, chef-owner of Central in Lima, Peru, which ranked No. 1 on the World’s Best Restaurants in Latin America list in 2023, told L.
A. Times Food general manager Laurie Ochoa that recipes can vary, but the key to great ceviche is a “balance of ingredients” and “the best quality ingredients — fresh fish, lime, salt ..
. .” When cooking on stage at L.
A. Times Food Bowl last year, the chef made a sea bass ceviche, but any firm white fish works. Shrimp, octopus, crab meat and scallops can also be used, or a mix of seafood.
At Food Bowl, Martinez soaked his fish in a leche de tigre (“tiger milk”) sauce with lime juice, celery, onion, garlic, jalapeño, cilantro leaves and stems, salt and spicy aji amarillo. “It has to be spicy,” Martinez said. The versatility of ceviche .
