Spicy Shrimp Ceviche with Roasted Sweet Potato

 

It was towards the end of the school day. We had completed our practicals and was now cleaning up the kitchen. The chef yelled, “I need 5 volunteers!” In my mind, I was like, “Oh Lord, what are they going to do?”  The volunteers came forward, then the chef said, “go across the hall to the other classroom, they’re having a restaurant and they need five volunteers to eat.” I could kick my darn self; damn… why didn’t I volunteer? Anyway we continued our deep cleaning of the kitchen. About an hour later the volunteers returned smiling from ear to ear,  and said, “Oh the food was so good. Y’all gotta try the steak and the shrimp. They need five more volunteers too.”
HALLELUJAH!!!!! Oh thank you Jesus! That was my cue. I said ” chef I’m going to the next room.” I turned to my friend Cheryl and said, “let’s go!”

The chef welcomed us to his class, which was a Spanish  speaking class. We were seated and one of the cooks/student gave us a menu. And of course the menus was in Spanish too, so the chef translated for us and wanted to know which dish on the menu, we were interesting in sampling. Now this poor man just doesn’t understand who he is dealing with. OK.
1. I’m in school.
2. It’s a free mock restaurant.
3. I’m looking at a whole bunch of food that they have to cook back there.
4. It’s the end of the day.
5. Now why was he really asking ME what I wanted to eat?
So of course my greedy ass said, “I want everything on the menu.”
He looked at me like, “are you serious?”
So I returned the startled look and asked, “can’t I have EVERYTHING?”

It didn’t seem as if my request was possible, so Cheryl and I decided to each order something different from the menu, by doing so we would have the opportunity to sample at least two dishes. Cheryl ordered some kind of garlicky shrimp and I order the ceviche.
Honey Chile….let me tell you! They put a hurting on that ceviche.  When the chef noticed how enthusiastic I was about his food, he wanted to feed me everything. So, I finally got my wish. In addition to the ceviche, I had the steak with a chimichurri sauce, duck confit and I was just too stuffed to eat anything else. I thanked him and returned to my class.

Now ceviche is a very popular dish of Spanish descent. I say that because it’s more of a latin cuisine. It is usually prepared with seafood, without heat, in a citrus/acidic vinaigrette. The seafood isn’t cooked, however it becomes denatured; it changes the structure in the protein. The ceviche was so d’luscious that I had to inquire about its preparation. The chef answered my questions. He made one extra step that I found to be intriguing: to minimize the risk of food borne illness, the shrimp was blanched for about 1 minute before it was placed in the awesome, tangy, citrusy marinade. I just knew that I had to go home and recreate this ceviche in my sanctuary. I couldn’t wait.

I slept well and knew exactly what I wanted in my ceviche. I was going to “Jamaica”fy” this bad boy. Scotch bonnet pepper had to be included for sure. It made it so spicy hot and sooooo good. You know that kind of heavenly heat. My son, Robert took one bite of it and was speechless for a minute, as he savored the flavors: sweet from the mangoes and roasted bell peppers, spiciness from the scotch bonnet peppers, tartness from the lemon juice…all these different flavor profiles served on roasted, then fried sweet potatoes….oh it was absolutely amazing!

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