plate 12: peru

I've got to say I was dubious about cooking this week's dish. "Cooking" fish in lime juice scared me slightly - would it really be cooked? And more importantly, would it cause a nasty tummy upset? I was determined to find out. However, I was comforted by the fact that ceviche ("se-vee-chay" or "se-bee-chay") is a centuries-old Incan tradition, a technique used to preserve fish. It was also stomach-settling to read a quote from a New York chef who explained that the acid in the citrus is less likely to cause food poisoning than uncured sushi.

I know I've said it in other Destination Degustation posts, but this one was extremely easy to make. All you do is slice a few fish fillets, put it in a bowl with finely chopped chilli, thinly sliced red onion then pour over lots of lime juice. Some recipes say to marinate it for 3 hours, while others instruct just 10 minutes. Due to my aforementioned fear, I marinated mine for about 45 minutes. That's all you need to do: whack stuff in a bowl and put it in the fridge. It seemed too easy and too good to be true. But it tasted amazing. I was impressed by the delicious tang from the lime and the spice from the chilli. Sydney had a scorcher of a day yesterday, so it was a super-refreshing light dinner.

I didn't keep the pots stashed away in the cupboard entirely this week, though. To accompany the ceviche I cooked another ancient Peruvian staple - quinoa ("keen-wah") in a salad. These seeds of a plant are cooked in the same way as rice, but don't make you feel as heavy. It's got a really nice nutty kind of flavour and, when mixed with cucumber and tomato, doused in a mixture of lime juice and olive oil, and served with ceviche, it's tops. Sources say quinoa has as much protein as meat, so it's an overall winner really. What won me over even more than the dish itself, though, was how much my mum liked how I cooked it. You see D Rose (the affectionate moniker I've bestowed upon my mother) was an early adopter of quinoa and has been cooking it for ages. I was chuffed when she tasted my quinoa (that I'd cooked for the first time) and said hers is never as soft and fluffy. Now I know mothers always praise their kids for a job well done even when it's not done well at all, but I'm taking this compliment as real and I'm running with it.

These Peruvian beauties are great when the weather's hot, so while the sun's still shining, give them a go and let me know what you think. x

NB Apparently ceviche is great if you have a hangover. Drink the lime juice marinade - known as leche de tigre (literally meaning "tiger's milk") - and that thumping head is said to magically disappear.