Aguachile Appetizer

Tweet
Pin It

Aguachile can be made of shrimp, octopus, scallops or fish. If you like sashimi, you’ll love aguachile. Won’t eat raw fish? Try my baked aguachile recipe especially created for the less courageous. Click on Baked Aquachile for this recipe.

This minimalist version contains the same primary ingredients of the traditional recipe so be assured you will enjoy a culinary experience of these amazing flavors.

Warning! Aguachile by it’s nature is chile-hot. Add incremental quantities of chile until it suits your tolerance. Let’s get started.

Ingredients

Serves 2

¼, ½, +++ serrano chile deseeded. Use amounts depending on how hot you desire

Salt

1/3 cup peeled and diced cucumber

1/3 cup of lime juice

2 tablespoons of water

½ medium avocado

4 oz fresh white, lean and firm fish, thinly sliced

Preparation

For preparing small amounts of chile, I like using a molcajete. A molcajete is a stone tool, the traditional Mexican version of the mortar and pestle. A small blender works fine, but here my instructions are for using a molcajete.

Add the lime juice to a small bowl. Using a molcajete, grind the cucumber to liquify it and empty into a the bowl of lime juice. Place the chile with ¼ teaspoon of salt in the molcajete. Use the pestle to puree chile. Add a small amount of water and stir with the pestle to make a chile liquor. In small amounts, add the liquor in the lime/cucumber dressing until it suits your tolerance of “hot”. Into a clean bowl, pass the aguachile mixture through a sieve to remove the solids. Salt to taste.

Mash the avocado to a thickness sufficient to make dollops of avocado. Use a little water or cream to obtain the proper thickness.

Plating

On a serving plate, overlap the fish slices and pour 2-3 tablespoons of aguachile over the fish. Optionally, sprinkle fish with finely diced chile or fresh herbs. Surround the fish with dollops of avocado.