Vegan Ceviche

For my birthday month I had an amazing dinner at Gracias Madre, which blew my mind and inspired me. I enjoyed their coconut ceviche and was so excited to go home and recreate it.

4 years ago I lived in Mexico City for 3 months, there I ate my way through all of the al pastor taco stands in D.F. As a welcome relief from my amazing diet of shopping, sight seeing and eating my way through D.F I decided to fly to one of the most beautiful places in Mexico, Tulum. This was before I knew the magic of the city and everyone and their brothers, sisters and cousin decided to vacation there. Then it was still a sleepy little town that I rode a bus to in the middle of the night. I rode a bike through town that the hostel let me borrow. I rode to the beach where I sun tanned topless, swam in cenotes and drank mojitos on the beach. The first day there, I got in a taxi cab and asked him to take me to the best ceviche restaurant in town and he drove me to El Camello. I ate there everyday and tried everything on the menu. I lost count of how much ceviche I enjoyed.

This cococut ceviche reminded me those days without the fish, shrimp and other seafood. This is perfect for vegans! I’ve been making ceviche with fish for a while and the key to making the most flavorful ceviche is generous amount of lime, salt and time. I prefer to start from the base up. So a flavorful base will make a world of difference. And my secret ingredient is dried oregano, it goes from gringo to Mexicano in a pinch.

Ingredients:

1 young coconut
2 limes
1 tablespoon of salt
1/2 cup of cilantro chopped
1/2 a red onion
1-2 serrano chilis
1 teaspoon of dried oregano
5 tomatoes
1/2 cucumber (de-seeded)

Directions:

In a small bowl squeeze lime juice, add salt and pinch of oregano and finely chopped serrano chilies and stir.
Finely chop cilantro and red onion. My biggest pet peeve in salsa is huge chunks of raw onion and raw garlic – horrible. Take the time to chop small and uniform. Stir and taste.
De-seed and chop your cucumbers into medium sized squares. Do the same with your tomatoes – remember to squeeze out the juice and seed of your tomato. Mix together, again taste, add salt if needed.

4. This is the tricky part, cracking open your young coconut. I used the heel of my good knife. I cut around the top, the weakest point, and then used a spoon to pry it open. Remember it’s filled with healthy coconut water so be careful and reserve your water to quench your thirst later. Scoop out the white flesh from the inside – get it all!

5. Chop into small pieces, and mix into your ceviche mix.

6. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour, this is where the flavor really get intense everything comes together very nicely. Serve with avocados and plantain chips.