A few years ago, we took a trip to Oaxaca in Mexico. As always, we hopped between hotels and AirBnBs, and found some magic places among them.
The courtyard of our first hotel in Cancun.
The mosquito net-covered bed in our AirBnB in Tulum.
And obviously, we visited amazing pyramids, ruins and beaches.
Chichen Itza
Tulum Ruins
Paulus at the ruins, just before a swim in that amazingly blue sea.
But the point of mentioning this trip is that I recently revived a recreated dish that we tried at a restaurant in Oaxaca during this trip. They called it something like fruit ceviche, but it was so much more. It was sweet and spicy, but also crispy, tangy and earthy. As best I remember, it had thinly sliced jicama, citrus supremes, cilantro, jalapeno, and fried leek. Maybe also plum. In any case, it’s a mixture of fruit textures, marinated in lime, flavored with cilantro and jalapeno, and garnished with a crispy oniony element.
I made it with some girlfriends one Sunday after our morning yoga class during the heat of summer this year. Although it’s a bit time consuming to thinly slice all these fruits, I think it’s well worth it, and it’s a great dish for a hot day. We ate our ceviche with avocado to add a bit of substance, and I think adding some flash-fried shrimp would turn this into a proper dinner-sized meal.
The recipe is below, but this dish practically screams out for experimentation, so go look in your fridge, see what you have, and get slicing. I’d love to hear about your ingredient combinations!
Fruit Ceviche/Jicama Salad
Ingredients
- 1/4 jicama
- 1 green pear
- 1/2 jalapeno (adjust amount and keep/remove seeds, depending on heat leve preferencel)
- 1 red grapefruit
- salt (to taste)
- 1 lime
- olive oil (optional)
- 1/4 bunch cilantro
- vegetable oil
- 1/2 medium onion
- 1 tbsp white flour
- salt
Instructions
Make the salad
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Peel the jicama, then cut it, the pear, and the jalapeno in thin slices. A mandolin is helpful here.
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Cut the skin and pith from the grapefruit and supreme out the segments with a knife.
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Put the fruit and jalapeno in a bowl, squeeze the juice of the lime over it, and season with a little bit of salt, and a small drizzle of olive oil, if you want. Mix together and set aside.
Fry the onion
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Finely slice the onion (thinnest setting on the mandolin). Pat dry with paper towels.
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Heat up a bit of vegetable oil in a small pan.
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Toss the sliced onion in flour, so that it leaves a thin coat.
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When the il is hot, deep fry the onion in small batches until dark golden brown. When a batch is ready, remove it from the oil with a slotted spoon and place it on paper towels. Sprinkle some salt on the finished batch and leave it to drain.
Serve
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Coarsely chop the cilantro leaves (reserve the stems for something else, like pesto) and mix them with the fruit in the bowl. Taste and adjust seasoning if necessary.
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Drain excess marinade and arrange salad on serving platter or individual plates. Garnish with a generous amount of fried onion.
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Serve immediately (with avocado slices if you wish).
