• qapaqten
• 21 May 2019

The ceviche or fish cebiche, is to the Peruvian cuisine what the paella is to the Spanish gastronomy.

Those who do not know it, ask themselves many questions about it: What is it? , how is it written? , what is its origin? , what types of ceviche are there? , what fish is used to prepare it? , what are its ingredients? , how is ceviche or cebiche made from Peruvian fish?.

Below we will answer these questions and give the recipe for the preparation of the classic fish ceviche as we do in the qapaq restaurant. restaurante qapaq.

What’s ceviche?

According to diccionario de la RAE (Spanish dictionary), ceviche is defined as: "Typical dish of some American countries, made from fish or raw shellfish cut into small pieces and prepared in a marinade of lemon juice or sour orange, chopped onion, salt and pepper».

Secondly say that the ceviche or cebiche fish is the best known dish of Peruvian cuisine and at the same time it is widespread in various countries such as Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama. All of them Hispanic-American countries on the Pacific coast.

How do you spell it? Ceviche or Cebiche?

Both forms are recognized based on the RAE definition, although the main spelling is 'cebiche'.

The Fundación del Espanol Urgente (Fundeu) explains that words with multiple writing styles, such as this one, coexist in our lexicon. seviche, sebiche, ceviche y cebiche«.

Despite the importance and known that this dish has not been established an official and correct way to write it. With all this we will use the form «Ceviche» in our article.

The origin of ceviche..

For the origin of the word, many and very varied hypotheses have been established, since the origin of the word Quechua (siwichiwhich means fresh or tender fish

We also talk about the Mozarabic origin of the same starting from the word «escabeche» (marinade) (iskebêch) which led to the term «sibech» to call this dish and that in Arabic means «acidic food».

Finally, other more peculiar theories can be found, which attribute the word to expressions used by British sailors who landed in Peruvian ports.

As for the origin of the dish itself, it is located in the Moche tribes that lived in the coastal areas of northern Peru and marinated the fish using the fermented juice of curuba.

During the Inca Empire, it was replaced by chicha in order to prepare it.

The arrival of Spanish conquistadors is believed to have led to the utilization of citrus and onions.

How many types of ceviche are there?

Although by academic definition and importance, ceviches are prepared dishes based on fish and/or seafood, there are also others that are prepared with meat and even only with vegetables.

Similarly, that the same language suffers variations depending on the geographical area where it is spoken, the same happens with ceviche, which varies in its ingredients and accompaniments, depending on the country where it is consumed.

In our case, obviously, we will refer only to the Peruvian ceviches and below we will indicate some of the best known:

Fish Ceviche, mixed ceviche, Octopus ceviche, Shirmp ceviche, ceviche de tollo (if prepared with shark), ceviche amazonico (cooked with river fish), duck ceviche, ceviche of mango or banana ceviche, among many others.

What fish is used to make a ceviche?

You can use any kind of fish to prepare ceviche, as we mentioned earlier, even meat or fruit ceviches can be prepared.

The most common fish in the preparation of ceviche, are usually white fish, such as: Corbina, sea bass, hake, etc.

In our restaurant we use fresh local fish, so we usually use cherne or sea bass.

Fish ceviche recipe at "qapaq restaurant".

Fish ceviche is a quick and easy dish to prepare, as well as delicious. Below we will teach you how to prepare it, as we do in our restaurant.

Ingredients

These are the ingredients needed to prepare our ceviche per person:

150 grs. White fish fillets (we usually use cherne or sea bass).

1 clove of garlic finely chopped.

1 teaspoon of finely chopped "aji limo" chili.

40 ml lime juice.

1⁄2 teaspoon chopped coriander.

60 grs of sweet potato (already cooked) or camote, as it is called in Peru.

20 grs of maiz cancha (roasted corn) and choclo corn. If you can not get it can be omitted.

50 grs of red onion cut into julienne.

50 grs of ice cubes.

salt and pepper.

Tiger milk (prepared with smoked fish infused with celery, coriander, chili limo and garlic).

How to prepare it

The first thing we have to do is cut the fish into 1 cm thick dice, season with salt and pepper and put in a bowl.

Next, add the garlic, ají limo chili and ice. Mix well and remove the ice..

The juice is then added lime, mix well and let it rest 1 minute.

At the end we add the onion and cilantro.

Finally we add the milk of tiger and wait 1 minute more before passing it to the plate.

To complete, all we need is the cooked sweet potato cut into small cubes and a few corn fields to decorate and add other flavors and textures.