CEVICHE

Peruvian food is one of my favourite cuisines. It became very fashionable in Madrid a few years ago, and there are some great Peruvian restaurants in London as well. This recipe comes from a friend who spent various years living there. You need:

- 400 gr of white fish - we used sea bass, but you can use lemon sole, monkfish, tilapia…the only requirement is that the fish should be very fresh as it is easy to get food poisoning from raw fish.
-  4 limes
- 3 lemons
- 3 cubes of ice
- a green chilli (sliced thinly - we did it with red chilli, which is also very nice, simply because the green ones I found in our corner shop were far too hot for the children)
- a spring onion (sliced thinly)
- half a clove of garlic (minced)
- a teaspoon of coarse salt
- a red onion (sliced thinly)
- coriander leaves (be generous)

Cut the fish into small cubes and put it in the fridge. Juice the lemons and lime ( do not press hard so that you do not get the bitter juice of the rind). Mix the garlic and salt with the juice. Put the red onion into the juice and leave it for 5 minutes. Take the onion out of the juice and put the fish into the juice together with the three cubes of ice. Put it back into the fridge and wait for 3 minutes. Add the sliced chile and spring onion and serve ( get rid of the ice if any bits of ice remain)

One of my sons loves it, but the other two find it too sharp. I dilute the juice with two tablespoons of very cold water for them.

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