Want Perfect Peruvian Ceviche? Use Leche de Tigre with Ají Amarillo.

The best fish to use in ceviche are white-fleshed, saltwater fish that are fresh enough to eat raw, ike sashimi. I love using red snapper, amberjack, and grouper. But, other great options are mahi-mahi, halibut, cobia, sea bass, and flounder.

Note: Tilapia can also be used for ceviche. As it’s more available than some of these other options, I thought it best to mention. Just know, tilapia has a softer flesh than the other listed fish, so it will be harder to cut into slices and will have a different texture.

Fish that are typically not used for ceviche are oily or fatty fish like salmon and tuna. They tend to overpower the delicate flavors in the leche de tigre.

Also a no go are cod or haddock. They are known for having parasites, and unless they were previously frozen to below -4°F (-20°C) for at least 48 hours those suckers (gross pun intended) aren’t dead. Just stick to fish and chips for these fishies.

Yes, a thousand times yes! Some other common items to treat with leche de tigre and eat fresh are shrimp and scallops. If you want to add them to your fish ceviche for a ceviche mixto, here’s how:

– For shrimp you are going to want them butterflied so there is as much surface area as possible for the marinade to cure. You will also want to wait until they look pink and cooked. Otherwise, the texture of your shrimp will be soft and slimy. Yuck.

– For the scallops, slice them the same thickness as the fish for the tiradito, about 1/4in (.6cm) and marinade them until they begin to turn opaque.

Honestly, there isn’t a wrong or right way to marinade your ceviche. Some recipes call for 30 minutes, some say 2 hours, and others want you to soak the fish all day! I prefer a super quick marinade specifically for textural reasons.

The acid in the marinade denatures the proteins in the fish meat. You can literally see this happening in real time as the texture of the outside of the fish toughens and becomes opaque. This would happen to other meats like beef if left long enough in marinades. Fish is far more delicate in structure than a meat, like beef, so it completely skips acidic tenderization and toughens within a minute of being introduced to an acid.

Ehhh…Not really.

Here’s the deal, I know I said the words “denature protein” earlier and all of you smarty pants know that’s what we say when we cook protein, be it bread or steak. But, in this case, you need to re-think the term “cook” and imagine it more like “cure”.

When we cure meats with, usually, salt and/or acid we don’t kill bacteria, we slow it down so much that those meats are safe to eat raw or after being kept for extended periods of time. Now, curing is also dehydrating, something we do not do when we marinade our ceviche. However, the acid and salt in the leche de tigre works in the same way to slow bacterial growth in the fish and flavor it at the same time. We aren’t actively cooking if there is no heat. The fish is still raw. It’s just been treated to maintain freshness and protect against fast bacterial growth.

This does not mean you can simply leave fish out on the counter while it marinades. Keep raw fish as cold as possible if you are not actively consuming it.

Fish for Peruvian ceviche its Japanese fusion cousin, tiradito, need to be fresh enough to eat raw. If you aren’t comfortable eating the fish you buy raw, don’t make ceviche with it. If you have a fishmonger or fish market in town, tell them what you plan to make and ask if one of the fish listed above are a fresh catch-of-the-day.

The best way is to purchase fish from a fishmarket. Asking the employees about when the fish was sourced and broken down ensures you get the freshest ingredients. A good fish market, will smell marine but not fishy, the cutting boards they fillet fish on will be clean and tidy, and they will keep whole fish covered in ice and propped in the position a fish would swim in (to keep stomach contents at the bottom of the fish and not squish the fillet meat).

– If you are buying fillets for ceviche, you want the flesh to be firm, odorless, and not slimy.

– If you are buying whole fish, go for fish with clear eyes, no marred scales, and again nothing with strong odor or any sliminess.

Should you want to make the fish stock for this recipe as well as the ceviche, I suggest getting a whole fish. You can ask your fishmonger to give you the fillets, head, and bones for both applications. They will break everything down for you right there and hand it over in a bag of ice. (more information about this in the fish stock recipe)

This is kind of a po-tay-to/po-tah-to situation. Both ceviche and tiradito are raw fish dressed with leche de tigre. The main differences are these:

– Ceviche is typically cut into cubes like poke and tossed in the leche de tigre for at least a minute before serving.

– Tiradito is sliced like sashimi and the leche de tigre is poured over the fish like a finishing sauce.

I actually prefer tiradito with its Japanese inspiration and Peruvian flavors. Slices of fish just do it for me. If you’d like to update this ceviche recipe into a modern and delicious fusion, here’s how you slice the fish fillets when it’s time to prepare them:

Place the filet with what would have been the skin side down on the board. Then, slice against the grain, at an angle, starting from the tail side and working your way along to filet towards where the head would have been. Each slice should be between 1/4-1/2in (.6-1.3cm) thick, sashimi-like pieces.

Everything else can stay the same, since I basically instruct you to eat the fish as soon as the marinade touches it. Enjoy! ☺️

I have found three different ways ají amarillo peppers are stored and available for purchase.
1. as a paste 2. jarred in a saltwater solution 3. frozen or fresh peppers

PASTE: The paste seems to be the most easily accessible. So, that is what I used in my recipe. The paste is a little earthier than the full peppers in either option. Be aware that it’s not exactly the same flavor as fresh peppers. I feel like all of you already logically knew that, but I’m aiming for more info rather than less.

JARRED: Anywho, if you find and decide to use the jarred peppers, you will want to use 2-3 of them depending on your preference for spice. Make sure to squeeze some of the brine out of the peppers and peel as much of the skin off of them as you can before blending. The skin can be tough and would give your leche de tigre a not so great texture.

If you don’t want to take the time to peel, I get it. Just take care of it on the back end and strain the marinade before use. Also, I suggest holding off on adding any salt to the blender until you’ve tasted the marinade. Because the peppers are preserved in a saltwater solution they bring their own salt to the mix and you may not need any.

FRESH/FROZEN: These peppers are obviously going to be your best option if they are available. To add these to your marinade, first cut up the peppers and sauté them gently until they begin to sweat. You are not trying to add color or char, just soften them. Same deal as the jarred peppers, you can add them to a baggie to steam after cooking them. Then peel the skin before blending or strain after their trip in the blender.

If you don’t add ají peppers to the leche de tigre you can also use habanero peppers. Thinly slice and use them as a topping. Habaneros are a common pepper in this style of ceviche. They are also on the sweeter side, even if they are spicier than the ají pepper.

Ceviche is usually eaten with sweet or starchy items, like sweet potato, sweet corn, plantains, yucca, or cancha (corn nuts).