Ceviche: Peruvian sushi?

I've never tried sushi so in this post I'm not able to compare it with the most typical Peruvian dish. However, the name sushi always appears when somebody describes you what is ceviche. Few seconds after say this comparation normally you can hear that they are totally different and that the person who speaks doesn't understand how somebody can see something in common between these two dishes. When I heard the word sushi, I immediately thought ceviche had to be awful. I wanted to try it, but only try, only a little. So I asked my boyfriend to eat it when we will be alone, without witness (I didn't know how I would react). At the end... we finished one Sunday in his house, with all his family. And everybody was watching me and asking: what about ceviche? Did you like it? :D

 

The ingredient that both include is, of course, raw fish. But there is a basic difference: in ceviche you have other important ingredient that "cooks" the fish. I put the word cook between inverted commas because the Peruvian lemon, which I'm talking about, can't cook anything literally speaking. It's so acid that it coagulates the protein of the fish. In general, they abused the lemon!

Ok, but the fish is not all. It needs to be accompanied by the raw onion, which in contact with the lemon gives out a sap. The dressing that consists of lemon and onion sap is called leche de tigre that means tiger's milk. As you can see in the photos, in the plate they normally put also camote (sweet potato) and corn (which is huge there!! They said me that the corn we eat in Europe there is given to porks, cattle and village birds... Great.). The ceviche goes very well with a typical drink made from corn too. In this case is other type of corn, violet corn used only to prepare chicha morada (the name of the drink). For a better flavour it's good to add peel of pineapple, apples and quince.

      

What I've already described is the simplest recipe. Other variations of ceviche can consist, for example, of seafruits in stead of fish.

Perhaps right now you feel exactly what I felt just before try ceviche, a disgust. But I assure that it's not so terrible like you fell it, really! And, an important thing: ceviche is not a dish to eat every day. Mostely is a dish sirved for a special occasions or meetings with friends or family you have not seen for a long time.

Enjoy your meal! ;)