Ceviche, the Original

What you need

• Corvina or any firm white fish (soft fish falls apart in the acid, you don’t want that)
• Lemons, many
• Limes (for every two lemons, one lime, roughly)
• Fresh ginger
• Garlic, if you’re in the mood
• Fresh chili, remove the seeds if you want less heat (you can mix different chilis too)
• Fresh cilantro
• Salt
• Ice cubes

What you do

Cut the fish into cubes. Not too small, or the acid will cook them too fast and you’ll lose the texture. This is personal, but give them some size.

Separate the trimmings. The tail tips, the odd pieces that didn’t cube nicely. Set them aside. They have a job later.

Cut the ginger very thin. Same with the chili, with or without seeds, with or without the veins. Your call, your mouth.

The cilantro: gather it all in one bundle and cut it as fine as you can. One clean pass. Don’t keep chopping or you’ll lose the aroma before it hits the bowl.

Now, the leche de tigre. This is the secret. There are a thousand ways to make it, but this is the simplest: take those fish trimmings, throw them in the blender with a lot of lemon juice, the ginger scraps, and a few ice cubes. Blend. This liquid is going to multiply the flavor of everything five times over.

Season the fish with the sliced ginger, salt, chili, and squeeze the lemons and limes over it. Then pour in the leche de tigre.

Let it sit. The acid does the cooking. You’ll see the fish turn opaque, that’s how you know.

Throw the chopped cilantro in at the end.

That’s it. It never fails.