This recipe was inspired by a wonderful listener of my podcasts, Miriam. She told me how much she loved ceviche. Miriam comes from Peru and I was curious to know why she loved it and how she ate it in Peru. Miriam described it beautifully to me and got a real sense of, not just the flavours, but also the textures that go together.
Traditionally, there is crunchy corn and apparently you can buy it in Coles in Australia. However I wanted to keep everything organic and also wanted to add more protein to the dish, so this is what I came up with. It is so good. It will be a regular feature on our menu.
I was, at first, concerned by having corn and sweet potato together as I am not such a fan of lots of sweet tastes in savoury, but the Peruvians certainly know what they are doing because these flavours together are so incredible. I also thought I should bake the sweet potato but decided, no, I will try to stay as close to tradition as I can and wow, just amazing, the simple steamed sweet potato with the ceviche was magical.
You can marinade the mushrooms for 2 hours or better still all day.
Peruvian Ceviche
Serves 4
Mushroom ceviche
Ingredients
1 red onion sliced thinly
250g oyster mushrooms torn into 1 cm strips
3 king mushrooms diced into 1 cm cubes
Juice of 2 - 3 limes (you want it very limey)
1 cup of coriander leaves then finely chopped
1 tbsp olive oil
2 chillies chopped small (optional)
1 tsp salt (you may need more)
(You can add two tomatoes diced with seeds removed – I didn’t)
1 sweet potato peeled and cut into 2 cm slices then
Corn kernels removed from 2 cobs corn
Tofu
375 g firm tofu crumbled small
1 corn cob kernels removed
Method
- Mix everything together and put in an airtight container in the fridge for at least 2 hours, longer is better. I made mine at 10 am and ate it at 630 pm.
- Make the tofu by frying the tofu and the corn it in a pan with oil for 10 minutes or so, turning occasionally until some brown appears on some of the crumbles. Mix in the tamari and cook for a further 5 minutes.
- While you are cooking the tofu steam the sweet potato and corn kernals.
- Serve on a platter or individual plates with mushrooms in the middle and then arrange the corn in one area around the mushrooms, then the sweet potato and then the tofu.
