Nikkei corvina and octopus ceviche. Peruvian cuisine

How to prepare a Nikkei ceviche .

Recently at Kitchen Club, Andrés Madrigal taught us how to prepare authentic Nikkei-style ceviche, seviche, sebiche, or ceviche .

Nikkei cuisine is the name given to the fusion between Japanese cuisine and that of other countries, in this case Peruvian, combining ingredients and oriental-Peruvian flavors and using techniques and cooking methods typical of Japanese cuisine.

Ceviche is a dish of fish, shellfish, or both in citrus dressings. We can find thousands of versions depending on the Latin American country in which we find ourselves, although the one that I present to you today is from Peru, the country of origin of this magnificent dish.

This type of fusion cuisine is said to have emerged in the homes of Issei migrants who came to Latin America and were later recruited for work on the haciendas.

This is the origin of the fusion of Japanese gastronomy, using its techniques with the products they found in different countries. Ceviche in particular comes from northern Peru.

As they say in the area, it must have the following ingredients:  “A white fish, a thin bed of lemon, a sigh of garlic, salt, aji limo without vein, a few onion chips. Twenty minutes between the lemon bed, in the worst case . ”

Lima’s Manuel Atanasio Fuentes, in 1866 , wrote us one of the first recipes written about ceviche:

“It consists of small pieces of fish or shrimp that are poured into sour orange juice, with lots of chili and salt; they are conserved like this for a few hours until the fish is impregnated with chili and is almost cooked by caustic action of this and of the sour orange.

Preparation of Nikkei Ceviche

Peruvian cuisine is perhaps one of the most exquisite, fusion of cuisines in the world and unsurpassed flavor.

One of the keys to a good ceviche is the temperature, the first thing we will do is put the container where you are going to serve the cebiche in the fridge. Fish must be cold at all times.

1. The first step is to clean the fish, in the course we use corvina , removing the hard parts and small pieces of excess skin.
2. At home I usually use monkfish, which already comes almost clean from the fish shop, it is only necessary to remove a small film of excess skin that can bother eating.
3. Choose the white fish that you like the most, perch is a cheap option at the prices of monkfish and sea bass, it also does very well with sole.
4. The choice is yours but it is very important that the fish is very fresh, not to use frozen fish.
5. We will use the loins of the fish. Once clean, we filleted them with the knife cutting strips or in medium dice, pieces of 1 – 1/2 cm.
6. We wash the octopus of gelatin remains well and cut small pieces, which do not disturb when eating. We reserve the fish and seafood in a large platter.
7. And remember that you have a specific post with all the secrets to cook the octopus  and that it is in its place. Normally I always freeze part of the cooked octopus for this type of recipe, octopus always by hand.
8. We cut the files in half and have them ready to squeeze. With one of them we rub the bowl where we are going to prepare the ceviche.
9. Add the fish and shellfish to the bowl or platter, add ice cubes, so that the fish is as cold as possible for as long as possible.
10. We cut the Chinese onion (in my house I have substituted it for leek thin) in julienne and add to the source with the fish.
11. We add fine salt (to taste), freshly ground white pepper and the finely chopped chili.
12. We squeeze the limes over the bowl where we have our ingredients, always by hand, preventing the seeds from falling and squeezing them only halfway so that they do not become bitter.
13. Always in any preparation with lemon or limes we must squeeze by hand and gently so that the juice does not bitter, no electric or manual juicers.
14. We stir 1 minute until everything is well integrated. When the fish begins to take color, taste and rectify with salt if necessary.
15. The citric acid in the limes will modify the proteins of the fish to leave them in their proper state.
16. We cut the coriander very fine, gently so as not to crush it and add. We remove the ice cubes from the bowl.
17. The last step will be to cut the purple onion into a thin julienne. We divide it in half as in the video.
18. We remove the outer layer, place half on the board and make the thin cuts. Once cut, we wash it very well in a strainer to remove the bitterness.
19. So that the onion is not poached but rather crispy, we add it directly to our ceviche at the last moment before serving.
20. Let it rest in the fridge for 10 minutes until the fish is very white.

We only have to serve our ceviche on the plate that we have reserved very cold in the fridge with a cold beer. A Peruvian dish that will delight your guests.

Preparation of Teriyaki sauce (the Nikkei touch to our recipe)

Teriyaki sauce is made by mixing and heating four ingredients : Sugar, Takara Mirin, soy sauce and sake (the latter can be substituted by another type of alcohol).

The ingredients do not have to be in the same proportion, it depends on the recipe. In addition to this, we have added two more ingredients to the sauce, rocoto diced (you can substitute chili without seeds) and ajinomoto (tuna flakes with monosodium glutamate, that is, a flavor enhancer).

The normal thing is to prepare this sauce with three measures of soy sauce, three measures of mirin, one of sake and one of sugar, the last two ingredients are optional.

Teriyaki literally means “glaze” , it is usually used for fatty meat and fish when they are grilled or baked.

In this case, once we have our sauce and we have it cold, we are going to add 50 ml to the ceviche so that it gets the Nikkei flavor that we are looking for. This step is optional, that is why I have put it separately, since the authentic cebiche or classic does not have it.

With these measures we will get about 300 ml of teriyaki sauce approximately. We will use 50 ml. of it and with the rest we can prepare some other recipe.

• 150 ml. Soy Sauce
• 150 ml. from Mirin
• 50 ml. from Sake
• 50 gr. of sugar
• 1/2 rocoto or 2 chopped and seedless chili peppers.
• 10 g of Ajinomoto.

We mix all the ingredients in a saucepan and put it over medium heat.

Stir occasionally until sugar dissolves and simmer over medium-low heat for 20 minutes until it has reduced to a third and looks like a shiny caramel.

We pass through a strainer and store in an airtight glass jar. We go to its conservation in the fridge.