When you're celebrating a cat's birthday, like Clare is celebrating Kiri's birthday this weekend, it is probably a good idea to put fish on the menu. I love my cats, but I'm not about to go out and purchase a big piece of sushi grade Ahi tuna for them. I bought this for human consumption, but in the spirit of Kiri's birthday, I did give the scraps to my cats. With the rest of the tuna, I made a lovely ceviche, which is more than appropriate for human parties. It is incredibly easy, since it requires no actual cooking and can be prepared in advance.
Ceviche is a latin American dish where fish that is "cooked" with citric acid, lime juice in this case, which gives it a slightly firmer texture than raw seafood. Just about any kind of seafood can be used, from tuna to shrimp to scallops. In its simplest form, ceviche is just citrus and fish, but it is very versatile. I like to keep the latin flair and make mine with tomato, onion and avocado. If you really want to minimise the work, just purchase some high quality, fresh salsa and add that to the fish, along with the lime juice and oil.
Ceviche is a great appetiser or first course. Many restaurants, for reasons I'm not entirely certain of, serve ceviche in cocktail or martini glasses. I'm not one to go against tradition (not all the time, anyway), so I did the same here. Serve ceviche with tortilla chips or just hand your guests a fork.
Tuna Ceviche
¾ lb sushi grade Ahi tuna
¼ cup lime juice (2 limes)
zest, 1 lime
1 tbsp olive oil
¼ cup chopped fresh tomato
½ haas avocado, cubed
¼ cup fresh, prepared salsa
(if not using salsa, use 2tbsp each onions, tomatoes, cilantro and 1 tsp jalapeno peppers)
salt and pepper to taste
salt and pepper to taste
Cube the tuna and toss in a large bowl with all the other ingredients. Marinate for at least 30 minutes and up to 3 hours before serving.
Garnish with lime and additional avocado.
Serves 4
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And in the spirit of Weekend Cat Blogging, you can see that Dusty looks content after his tuna scraps.
Since it was a party, I put out some catnip, too. Phoebe, as the younger and less responsible cat, might have had a bit too much.
For more cat photos, why don't you check out Clare's WCB roundup?