On Friday it is always time for a healthy snack at Casa de la Vida, but today I deviate again to present you a new kind of dish, namely a sea bass Ceviche!
The fish world is not fresh for me, but this dish and the culture behind it certainly is! In recent months I have made many new nice contacts via Instagram and I ran into a very nice lady named Katinka. Next year she will release a book about her favorite cuisine and culture, Peru! Today I would like to introduce you to Katinka and her great blog !!
A while ago we started talking via instagram, it turned out that we were old neighbors in Amsterdam, loved the same pizza and restaurant and both really wanted to make cultural food more known to the world! Or that we both have our own story and want to tell the world. And that’s why I dedicate this blog to her mission today!
Ceviche is a dish that I have seen on the menu in restaurants, and heard about it more often, but never actually eaten it myself. I thought it was a great initiative to make this dish after I became completely enthusiastic after talking to Katinka about her dream and blog. So I went for it, and what better opportunity to cook this than the moment you are busy with fish and making beautiful tables full of delicious dishes?
How did the cooking go? First we had to get a fresh fish from somewhere. I started to doubt and worry a bit about that, also because I had forgotten that you could also get fresh fish in the supermarket in Spain. I was concerned that the fresh fish might be sold out on Friday so we got there early and scored a beautiful sea bass. I always really like how they clean the fish in front of you. I would look at that for hours.
Fortunately, we could still find enough limes in the supermarket. These can still be really scarce. We usually can’t find them anywhere in the village where we live. Then we thought it would be easy to make everything else, until we discovered that the fishmonger hadn’t taken the skin off the fish! Poor Luis had to do it. I was too busy cooking other things! And secretly I really enjoyed being in the kitchen with him. And to wrestle with ingredients! This was a lesson learned for next time.
Once the skin was off, we started preparing the tiger’s milk. It was all so new to me that I didn’t quite understand the recipe and had to reread it a few times. After I asked Katinka a few questions, it became completely clear to me! The only thing I regretted was that I couldn’t find the corn chulpe. I could make the dish happy with regular corn, but it will definitely taste a little different than intended.
And then came the presentation!
If I have to be very honest, I didn’t quite know how to present this dish and in which plate or bowl. We had some doubts about two types of plates, but in the end we went for the bowl that you see in the photo, because we wanted to emphasize the fish color.
Ceviche is a wonderful dish to eat and make! I can definitely recommend making it to anyone. It’s fun to try something new and this dish is also very healthy. Why? The ginger and lime in the tiger’s milk are healthy ingredients with a very powerful effect. And the fish itself is of course also healthy! Tiger’s milk has been shown to be a good anti-hangover agent and boosts your immune system. If that immune boost isn’t reason enough for you to use tiger’s blood more often, this might help: Tiger’s blood is also an aphrodisiac. Healthy and aphrodisiac, what more could you want?
It was a really nice experience to cook a new and completely unknown dish. The stress was high because of course I wanted to do it very well, as always, and present it. Otherwise I wouldn’t be able to blog about it and I really wanted to do that!
You can find the recipe and Katinka’s blog here:
Recipe: Ceviche Clásico
Katinka’s mission is to share Peru’s great cuisine and make it accessible to everyone. She is busy introducing the world to the culture of Peru and the delicious dishes that come from there. And I hope I help her with this through this post. I am also so curious about her book that will be released in April 2021. A few weeks ago she submitted her manuscript and now we have to wait and see when we can get the book! Another recipe from Katinka will be on our menu soon, but I’ll keep that a secret for now!
Making a dish that is totally outside my comfort zone has made it very clear to me that there is still so much to learn, even though I always say that I know a lot about cooking. I’m far from done with my culinary explorations, which is why cooking is so cool. There is always something new to put on the menu!
Be careful with this dish that if you buy a fresh fish and that it is completely bone-free, because we came across a few large bones. I am very curious how the next Katinka dish that I am going to make will turn out. I’ll let you know for sure!
It was a great dish, with the wonderful taste of the sea, complemented with a hint of lime and spiciness of ginger and chilli! All flavors that you can wake me up for. I would definitely make this one again if I wanted to brag if people came over! So take a look at her blog, pick out a recipe and make it for your guests! This way you can also introduce others to Peruvian cuisine!
Happy Friday, friends!
Still, I am always very curious about what my readers like to eat and make. Are you already a little familiar with Peruvian cuisine? Or are you also trying to put your food culture on the map? Send me a message about it and maybe I will cook your recipe soon and there will be a blog about it!
