Shrimp Aguachile
Raw shrimp cured in lime until it turns opaque, under a blended sauce of cilantro, jalapeño and serrano. Ceviche's sharper, greener cousin — nothing goes near heat, and it wants to be eaten cold off a tortilla chip.
Method
Slice the shrimp in half lengthwise and pull out any remaining vein or tail. Lay them in a shallow serving dish, in a single layer if you can manage it. Squeeze over enough lime to cover them and sprinkle with salt. The acid is doing the cooking here and you can watch it happen — the flesh goes from translucent to opaque and slightly pink. Turn them as needed so both sides cure, 20 to 30 minutes.
While that happens, slice the red onion as thin as you can. This is where a mandoline earns its drawer space. Put the slices in a bowl, salt them generously, and add just enough water to cover. A splash of white vinegar is optional and pushes the color toward pink.
Make the marinade. Blend the lime juice, garlic, cilantro, jalapeños, the serrano if you are using it, and the salt until completely smooth — a full minute, scraping the sides down as you go. If there is lime juice left in the dish from curing the shrimp, use it toward the ½ cup rather than squeezing more.
Pour the marinade over the shrimp and toss to coat. Drain the onions and scatter them over the top, mixing them in a little. Add the cucumber and radish slices. Refrigerate 30 minutes and up to 4 hours — this wants to be properly cold, not merely not-warm.
Taste before it goes out and adjust the salt, on a tortilla chip rather than a spoon, since that is how it will actually be eaten. Top with avocado, scatter cilantro leaves over, add a drizzle of olive oil if you like, and put the chips or tostadas on the side.
Notes from the line
Lime cures shrimp — it firms the flesh and turns it opaque — but curing is not cooking, and acid does not make questionable seafood safe. Buy shrimp you would be happy eating raw, from somewhere you trust. Commercially frozen-at-sea is a genuinely good choice here rather than a compromise, because the freezing is what handles parasites.
Limes vary more than you would expect. Pick ripe ones — slightly soft, less aggressively acidic — or leave them on the counter for a few days first. Roll them under your palm before juicing and you will get noticeably more out of each one.
Thinly sliced raw scallops work in place of the shrimp, cut ¼ to ⅓ inch thick. And if raw is a step too far tonight, cooked shrimp thawed from frozen will get you the flavor. It is not aguachile in any strict sense, but it is a reasonable way in, and cut in half the same way it still piles onto a chip.
Adapted from Feasting at Home. Headnote and method rewritten for Dad Made.