If you're baffled by what ceviche is, allow us to explain. Essentially it's raw fish cooked in lime or lemon and chilli. It might not sound like the best idea, but trust us we've had a lot of the stuff in our time, and it's pretty damn good. We spoke to the chefs at Asia de Cuba about how to make their delicious prawn, red snapper and ‘confit watermelon’ version.
Ceviche Marinade
200ml fresh squeezed lime juice
10g finely grated ginger
10g finely grated garlic
20g soy sauce
20g Vietnamese chilli garlic sauce
Japanese togarashi pepper to taste
Plate recipe
240g water melon
120g cooked and peeled prawns
120g red snapper fillet (all skin and bones removed)
60g red onion, very finely diced
20g mild green chillies de-seeded and finely diced
60g micro celery
60g coconut shaving crisps
Method
To make the ceviche marinade, put all the ingredients in a bowl and stir, this should be prepared in advance and left in the refrigerator.
To prepare the water melon, peel and cut into 8 rectangles 5cm x 4 cm and 1cm thick, remove all the seeds, lay on cling film over a tray and place the melon on the film, pour 80ml of the ceviche marinade over the melon, fold over the cling film and lay another tray on top, put 4 dinner plates on top and place in refrigerator for at 1 hour to press.
Dice the snapper and prawns into 8mm cubes mix in the finely diced red onion. Pour over the remaining ceviche marinade and stir with a stainless steel spoon and leave to marinade for 8 minutes, it helps if you give this a stir every couple of minutes.
To plate the dishes, take four plates and put two pieces of watermelon on each,then top with micro celery, arrange the fish and spoon the marinade over and sprinkle with the diced chilli, finish with coconut crisps.
Asia de Cuba recommend eating ceviches with Kupuks (giant prawn crackers and plantain crisps) and drinking a glass of Picpoul de Pinet.
