Lime and Coconut Ceviche

This is a slight twist on your traditional Ceviche that's usually just lemon juice, fish, and tomatoes. Incorporating the tropical flavors from lime and coconut, this is basically seafood "cooked" by the acid in lime juice. Not only does that leave delicious seafood, but the juice left over afterwards is also full of flavor. No stove or oven required, so this is perfect for a hot summer day! ​

Ingredients:

• 1 lb high-quality seafood (ideally sashimi grade) This time, I used 1/2 lb scallops and 1/2 lb shrimp. Halibut is commonly used as well.
• 1 cup lime juice (8 limes juiced)
• 1/2 red onion
• 1/2 large tomato 
• Cilantro
• 1  big avocado or 2 small ones
• 1/3 tin coconut milk

CHEF TIP: For any high-quality seafood, storing it in the fridge isn't good enough. If you really want to keep it in good shape between when you buy it and when you make this recipe, keep it on ice in the fridge. This keeps it colder than the fridge, but not too cold to where it freezes. 

My shrimp and scallops in containers, inside a bag with ice.

Start by juicing 8 limes. Sure, you can buy lime juice in one of those lime-shaped squeezy bottles, but trust me, the flavor is completely different and much better from fresh limes. Plus, it only takes a few minutes and costs almost the same. 8 limes should yield about 1 cup of juice.

Then, cut your onion, tomato, and cilantro into small pieces like this:

discard the stems on the cilantro

CHEF TIP: Before I worked at a restaurant, sharpening knives was something I rarely did. Actually, I didn't even have a good sharpener until recently. Now I do it like, literally after every use. Always make sure your knife is sharp,  Especially if you are cutting seafood like in this recipe.  It makes things like 100000x easier and is actually safer in a way.

Next, you want to cut up your seafood into small cubes, shown below:

These scallops are from Maine and arrived super fresh in California. Definitely some of the biggest ones i've seen!

this is a 1/12th cube of that scallop. This is the size you should go for.

Make sure your shrimp are peeled and de-veined!

So when its all done, put it in a non-metal container (ideally glass or ceramic) like so...

By the Way, side note: Did you know where scallops come from? I never did until I had been working full-time at a seafood restaurant for almost 4 months and finally decided to google it. Learn something new every day...

Anyway, back to the recipe. Next, add the lime juice and coconut milk (1/3 a can) to the chopped seafood

Make sure the coconut milk is mixed well like the one shown below. If its a natural brand without additives, the cream may separate from the water. You may need to heat it up a little to get it like this. This is important otherwise the texture will be way different.

Mix it together with the onion, tomato, and cilantro. 

Now is the part where you just leave it in the fridge for 8-24 hours. This allows the acid in the lime juice to "cook" the seafood. Pretty easy, eh?

see how the shrimp went from grey to pink?

The last step before you are ready to serve is to dice and mix in the avocado like so:

Strain the liquids from the rest. KEEP THE JUICE! It's very tasty and can be served separately or even drank on its own.

HOW TO PLATE LIKE A PRO: 

find a small ramekin like the one shown and pack the ceviche tightly into it. Then turn it upside down on the plate for a cool-looking presentation.

Save a piece of cilantro to put on top to make it look even cooler. Unfortunately the rest of my cilantro froze in the fridge so I couldn't add that final touch. Oh well. 

this is a good way to use the leftover coconut-lime sauce!