things wot i made then ate: ceviche

Is there anything more refreshing on a hot summer day? What?

The lime smasher that inverts a lime half is broken by brute force therefore I must resort to this kitchen hack. The tongs are not quite as good repurposed for this, but it works, and if I break these then I'll just have to get new things.

I am aiming for a solution that is at least 15% lime, this will be stronger than that. I think. I will be able to tell how well this has gone by the color of the tuna and the shrimp. The tuna will go grey as it does when it is cooked with heat, and likewise the shrimp will turn pink. The scallops and salmon will change in appearance too but less noticeably. This was prepared in the evening. If the flesh fails to change by morning, well, there are plenty more limes and lemons and vinegar where these came from.

Limes are pH2, lemons slightly less acidic. How do I know for sure? Because shut up, that's how.

Obviously this dish is intended for ocean-side preparation, and I suppose that is where you will have it best. These seafood items are all processed and flash-frozen, even packaged immediately right there on the commercial fishing boat. Because of that, the integrity of the cell structure is already damaged, but not hopelessly.

A few of my favorite things ↑. I tried not to get carried away here. I considered fennel and onion but I didn't want it to take up room in the bowl which would cause me to add water to cover the mass. There is fennel seed up there and that doesn't take up any room at all. Besides, I can add fresh onion and sliced fennel if I want to when the ceviche is plated. I added a single garlic clove in the marinade. I would have included slices of fresh ginger if I had some around, but alas, for I am fresh gingerless, although come to think of it, I do have some in powdered and candied forms. Would that be going too far?

* sea salt and kosher salt

* mixed chile flakes

* whole coriander seeds

* whole cumin seeds

* whole peppercorns

* whole fennel seeds

See the restraint? I left out caraway seeds, cardamon, star anise, all the leafy things available, dill, bay, cilantro, basil, thyme, oregano, savory, all those things are on hand.

I read in a book -- a book! -- that even in the face of cholera epidemic that ceviche prepared with lime is one of the safest things around. This will comfort me one day when presented with ceviche as one of just a few reasonable choices under a sea-side palapa in Mexico. That happened once. My traveling companions and I looked at each other incredulously, distrustingly, cynically, suspiciously, and our contorting visages revealed the machinations behind them, then we politely declined. The liquid in the cheerful sundae glasses looked to us like bath water. We're stupid. (Later we would observe a worker refilling a five gallon container labeled "filtered water" with a garden hose attached to an outdoors spigot. So there you go.

Sixteen hours later ↓. I'm guessing. Possibly fourteen. Look, I didn't pay that close attention. This was started at night and picked up again the next day around noon. The color changed predictably.

A sauce and a simple salad is prepared. The sauce is not necessary since the seafood was marinated for so long it is rather superfluous. So is a dressing for the salad, for that matter. Nonetheless, a sauce is prepared incorporating favorite ingredients in moderation. It is all by impulse. The next sauce will be different. I hesitate to write the ingredients because it will limit your own imagination, but still I must give some idea how this works. This sauce was very strong. It would have been fine diluted with water, and maybe even improved with less ingredients, but I like it, and that's all that counts.

* soy sauce (for salt)

* mirin (for sweetness)

* fish sauce ( for umami)

* chile flakes (for capsaicin heat)

* toasted sesame oil (for I don't know what)

* wasabi and Chinese dry mustard (because this is similar to sashimi and it seemed like a good idea)

* sake (because I have it, and what the hell)

If I was making a sauce for children I would fashion one that included peanut butter. I'd make it much less strong, less salty, and more sweet.

So there's that.

The salad is bibb lettuce, celery, which I usually do not use in salads, thinly sliced sweet onion, and bulb fennel.

As it turned out, the salad was dipped into the sauce a lot more than the seafood was dipped, just to show you ... something ... something about something.