Ceviche is pretty fabulous as an appetizer, and it may be found in upscale seafood restaurants, like Harry's Seafood Grill® in Wilmington, DE. Harry's Seafood Grill is a favorite restaurant of mine where my great friend Peggy Hullinger and I occasionally have lunch. Basically, Ceviche is raw seafood marinated in pure lime juice or in a mixture of pure lime and lemon juice. The marination replaces the normal cooking process for the seafood. Then selected fresh vegetables are prepared and added to the drained seafood along with some olive oil and salt and pepper. A small amount of the reserved, drained and strained lime juice is added back into the mixture, to taste. The Ceviche is served very cold, immediately.

By happenstance I saw a recipe for baby scallops ceviche on the Internet and I knew that, with a few modifications, it would be a great addition to the Food Nirvana Appetizer section. As I have never made Ceviche of any sort I decided to provide the recipe and indicate that I have to test it and possibly modify it to create a perfect product. I will do so and report back to you. Alas, I doubt the chefs/management at Harry's would share their recipe.

Note that the recipe I found used bay scallops and I specifically avoided them in this recipe as they are inferior in every respect to fresh sea scallops. I figure that if you are going for something great you have to start with the very best ingredients.

Ingredients:

1 pound, 5 ounces of drained fresh sea scallops

3/4 cup of lime juice (from about 8 limes)

1/3 cup of minced red onion

1/3 cup of seeded and diced tomato

1/2 cup of peeled, seeded and diced cucumber

1 seeded and diced jalapeño pepper

3/4 cup of diced fresh cilantro, loosely packed (about 1 bunch of fresh cilantro)

3 tablespoons of extra-virgin olive oil

Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Directions:

Wash and drain the sea scallops. Then cut them into pieces about 1/2 inch per side.

Marinate the scallop pieces in the lime juice in a medium size bowl for 30 minutes, covered and refrigerated, tossing every 10 minutes.

Strain the lime juice from the bowl and save it in a separate bowl, using a very fine sieve.

Stir in the onion, tomato, cucumber, jalapeño pepper and cilantro.

Stir in the olive oil and season the Ceviche to taste with salt and pepper.

Add back some of the strained lime juice to taste as desired. I suggest starting with no more than 1/8 of a cup.

Serve the Ceviche immediately in pre-chilled appetizer dishes.

I suggest serving herbed crackers and a nice chilled clean-tasting white wine like Pinot Grigio to accompany the Ceviche.

Enjoy!