Captain Charlie does a great job staying on top of the fishing reports, so I thought I’d contribute to the blog today in a bit different way. When you catch high quality fish, it calls for high quality preparation. There’s not a whole lot better than food direct from the ocean to the table. There’s something great about cooking (or preparing) your catch. One of my personal favorites is ceviche, because it’s simple, fast, and delicious.
When the bite is good, and we catch a wahoo, we get to enjoy one of Florida’s true delicacies. Wahoo is among my very favorite fish, and is great to prepare and eat as sushi or wahoo ceviche. Anytime you’re eating raw fish, you need to be very careful while cleaning it. Mainly, don’t cut the stomach and taint the meat in anyway. If you’re curious, here’s how to clean a wahoo (video)
If this sounds gross to you, you can stop reading now, and please don’t ever actually find out where your hamburger (or even frozen veggie burgers) come from. Clean your fish with care, and place the fillets on ice. If you’re planning to prepare sushi, it will actually taste best after 24-36 hours unfrozen on ice. This gives the fish proper time develop the flavor that comes from the meat breaking down.
Sushi is easy – let the fish sit on some ice for 24-48 hours, cut the fillets very thin with a sushi knife, and place on top of some sushi rice. In case you need to know, here’s how to make sushi rice (vid). I prefer straight sashimi, since I’m lazy, and it saves me the time of making rice. You can put a drop of lime juice (to “cook” it), dab of olive oil (or using a bbq brush), and a piece of cilantro. This makes a great appetizer while you’re making your ceviche, or grilling some fish.
If you want to know more about sushi, I highly recommend this book – it’s not actually instructional, but provides a historical perspective and lots of good information in narrative fashion.
What you’ll need:
- 1 lb. of wahoo filets
- juice of 1 lime
- 1 medium jalapeno, seeded and minced
- 1/4 red onion diced
- 1 mango diced
- 1/2 cup of cilantro chopped finely
- salt/pepper
- teaspoon of olive oil
- optional: sesame seeds
Preparation: (super simple!):
- Chop the fillets into little cubes, pour the lime juice on it through a strainer.
- Add your jalapeno, onion, mango, cilantro, and olive oil. Stir well.
- Salt and pepper to taste. I like the texture of some sesame seeds with it as well myself.
- Let your ceviche set in the fridge for an hour or so, and serve with chips or tostadas. Save the leftovers, and it will taste even better tomorrow from the fish marinating in the lime!
If you’re real lucky, and you get a big fish, you have a couple nice pieces left to grill for a wahoo 3 way!
Some more ceviche recipes: