The Southern Cone · Volume 26, Coast, Valley and the Mapuche and German South

Ceviche chileno

Name: Ceviche chileno
Total time: 12 h
Cuisine: Chile
Ingredients: 500g firm white fish: corvina, reineta or róbalo, diced small, about 1cm; juice of about 3 limes fresh lime juice, to cover; 1/2 onion, finely diced onion, finely diced, ordinary yellow or white rather than Peruvian red; 1/4 each of red and green bell pepper, finely diced red and green pepper; 1/4 cup leaves, no stems cilantro; juice of 1/2 lime a final splash of lime; 2 tbsp a little oil; to taste salt and pepper; to taste, optional merkén, in some modern versions

Chilean coast

Ceviche chileno, lime cured white fish with onion, coriander and pepper: a shallow white bowl of small, opaque diced white fish glistening in a clear citrus marinade, fine dice of white onion and flecks of red and green pepper scattered through.

An illustration of the dish, not a photograph of it cooked.

Time: 12 hours

Researched: Researched from 30 sources in the brief, none yet linked in the text
Reviewed: Not yet reviewed from inside the tradition
Cooked: Not yet cooked and reported

As tradition built it

Cure 12 hours, though some lower-quality recipes give as little as 30 minutes.

Ingredients

500g firm white fish: corvina, reineta or róbalo, diced small, about 1cm
juice of about 3 limes fresh lime juice, to cover
1/2 onion, finely diced onion, finely diced, ordinary yellow or white rather than Peruvian red
1/4 each of red and green bell pepper, finely diced red and green pepper
1/4 cup leaves, no stems cilantro
juice of 1/2 lime a final splash of lime
2 tbsp a little oil
to taste salt and pepper
to taste, optional merkén, in some modern versions

Method

Dice the firm white fish small, about a centimetre, and cover with fresh lime juice to cure, twelve hours by a named in-tradition source, though other, lower-quality recipes give as little as thirty minutes.
Combine after curing with the finely diced onion, red and green pepper, cilantro, a final splash of lime, a little oil, salt, pepper and, in some modern versions, merkén.
Keep it deliberately minimal: no sweet potato, no corn, the two additions that mark the Peruvian dish out from this one.

What a modern chef changes

A vacuum-marinated cure, offered to test rather than settled, and a dust of dehydrated ají

Method

Consider a controlled, timed sous vide-style vacuum marination at fridge temperature, which could in principle cure the fish more evenly through the whole cut than simple submersion, avoiding the over-cured rim and raw core a long soak in an open dish can leave; this is this chapter's own reasonable extrapolation from general technique, not documented Chilean chef practice, and should be tried and judged on its own merits rather than taken as settled.
Dehydrate a portion of the dressing's ají into a fine dust in the spice grinder, and dust it over at the very end for heat without diluting the citrus.

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