shrimp ceviche in toasted corn cups & guacamole

After a holiday hiatus on the hors d'oeuvres, they're coming back with a refreshing seasonal start. It seems every grocery ad I look at, avocados and citrus are in abundance. And as with signs of large harvests, A. gave me a few extra ripe avocados last week, suggesting guacamole. I actually had something a bit different in mind when I first flipped through the book, this ceviche with avocado puree, a perfect application for such overly ripe avocados.

Now, the recipe originally called for scallops, but in an effort to save my wallet since my unemployment, I switched it up to a more cost effective, but still delicious and fitting seafood ... shrimp. I chose relatively smaller shrimps, since they will be served in small pieces, there's no need to spend the extra dollars a pound on whole jumbo shrimp. Just remember to de-vein the shrimps, you don't want any potential grittiness in your ceviche.

The corn cups were simple enough by using store bought corn tortillas, where I found a blend of wheat, blue corn, and flaxseed. The slight tinge of blue was calling to me at the market, and I couldn't resist the unusually intriguing color. These were warmed on a skillet, brushed with olive oil, cut into circles with a cookie cutter, and then formed into the cups of a mini muffin pan. I baked them at 350 for about 15-20 minutes until they were crisp and toasted in color. The sweetness of the blue corn definitely helped balance the acidity of the ceviche, and the wheat gave the chips a nice chew.

As with most dishes in my house, there were leftovers. So I used the shrimp ceviche and remaining components to form tacos for lunch the next day. As for the other avocados, I did end up making guacamole just as A. predicted, and served them with blue corn tortilla chips, cut into wedges and toasted in a 350 degree oven until browned and crisp.

The lightness of the shrimp augmented with citrus definitely was a nice and welcomed contrast to the heavier and more decadent meals of the holidays. I found the shrimp a perfectly acceptable substitute, with the only downfall lying in the gray, not pink, exterior color, because they were not technically cooked. But with the amount of money saved, I'm not complaining. The hors d'oeuvres were perfectly one bite, filled with freshness and crunch. But for those looking more for a meal, my tacos application would be more appropriate, and a quicker use of the ingredients.

Shrimp Ceviche with Avocado Puree in Toasted Corn Cups adapted 

makes a dozen

1/3 cup plus 2 tbsp fresh lime juice
1/2 cup fresh orange juice
1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
5 tbsp chopped cilantro (reserve 1 tbsp for guacamole)
1 large jalapeno, sliced into thin rounds
1 small red onion, sliced into thin rings (reserve 1/4 for guacamole)
1/2 lb small shrimp
1 orange
1 ripe avocado
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
toasted corn cups from three tortillas (cutting four circles from each tortilla)

In a medium bowl, combine 1/3 cup lime juice, orange juice, vinegar, 2 tbsp of cilantro, jalapeno, and half of the red onion. Cut the shrimp into about 1/2 inch pieces and stir into the marinade. Cover and refrigerate for 24 hours, stirring once or twice to ensure that all sides of the shrimps are covered by the marinade.

Section the orange to remove the membranes, and cut into smaller pieces. Cut the remaining onion rings into about 1-inch pieces. When ready to assemble, peel the avocado and cut into chunks. Mash the avocado with 2 tbsp lime juice until smooth. Season with salt and pepper to taste and place in a ziplock bag.

Snip off a corner of the ziplock bag and pipe a tsp into each corn cup. Top with a few pieces of the shrimp, and garnish with the orange, cilantro and red onions. Serve immediately.

Tacos

makes 3 (using leftovers of ceviche)

Warm tortillas on a skillet and assemble tacos by spooning the shrimp into a line onto the tortilla. Pipe a thick line of avocado along the shrimp mixture. Garnish with orange, cilantro, and red onions.

Guacamole adapted

makes about 1 1/2 cups

1/4 of a small red onion (reserved from above)
1 large jalapeno pepper, seeds and ribs removed, finely chopped
1 tbsp finely chopped cilantro (reserved from above)
2 ripe avocados
1 medium roma tomato, seeds removed, cut into 1/4-inch dice
1 tbsp fresh lime juice
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

In medium bowl, combine onion, jalapeno, and cilantro, using the back of a wooden spoon. Cut and scoop out the avocados into the bowl and mix thoroughly. Add the tomatoes and lime juice. Season to taste. Serve with toasted corn chips.

If reserving for later, place in airtight container with a piece of plastic wrap laid directly on top sealing out any air. (The avocado will oxidize and brown if it touches air)

macarons to start off a new year

Happy 2012! I hope everyone had a great new year to wrap up the holiday season. So to start off this new year, I made French macarons. As I said before, I love tea, so I just had to flavor these little bites with matcha green tea and earl grey tea. Macarons have found a soft spot in high end bakeries in the past few years. And home bakers, like me, daring for a challenge, have researched extensively and experimented with recipes and techniques to try to achieve the perfect non-hollow, slightly moist, and footed sandwich cookie. Despite David Lebovitz's logic paralleling baking your own macarons to making your own hot dogs, us novices still venture to create these little almond cookies.



I made macarons before with A. and Audgbodge, following Tartelette's extensive array of recipes. But this time, I stumbled upon Not So Humble Pie's elaborate post and explanation of these treats that baffle a lot of us. I loved her mathematical and logical approach to deducing how macarons work. The graph that she used to compare different recipes made complete sense to me and begged me to question why I didn't think of that earlier. Since baking ultimately comes down to ratios of ingredients that result in the right chemical reaction, her comparison was brilliant.

I always found macarons to very overly sweet, so when her recipe called for a bit more almonds and egg whites to sugar, I was on board. I used one recipe to yield two batches, one flavored with two teaspoons of matcha green tea powder and the other with the  ground leaves of one teabag of earl grey. Most recipes tell you to pulverize almonds with the powdered sugar in a food processor all at once, but I found that it becomes hard to tell if the almonds are fully ground. I found it easier to blend the almonds with a few spoons of powdered sugar until mostly powdered, then sifted, and the remaining chunks of almonds blended again with another few spoons of powdered sugar. It was just easier to ensure that the almonds were ground in smaller batches, but make sure you add the powdered sugar as it keeps the almonds from turning into almond butter.  

I filled both of them with a bittersweet chocolate ganache from Epicurious, recipe halved and filled into a plastic bag to chill and then pipe. This time around, I read up about maturing macarons in the refrigerator for a few days and decided to try it out. They were in fact quite delicious, with the shell a bit more moist and flavorful. As usual, I gave some away to save myself. Surprisingly A. enjoyed the earl grey more and even her boyfriend, who normally doesn't like macarons liked mine. Most likely because these weren't as sweet, inherently from the almond/egg white ratio to sugar and additionally from the slightly bitter filling.