Ceviche!
One goal for myself on the boat was to become adept at cooking seafood. Prior to life on Scooter, I could make a mean tilapia fish taco, and I felt comfortable keeping shrimp from getting too rubbery but that was about the end of my seafood resume.
So far we’ve been able to catch/cook/eat: Rock crab, Dungeness crab, Oysters, Butter Clams, Manilla Clams, Geoducks, Mussels, Urchin, Spiny Lobster, Scallops, Tuna (not caught yet) – Salmon, Sheepshead, Mackerel, Jacksmelt, Bonito, and now Calico Bass.
One favorite mainstay dish has been ceviche. We almost always have tortilla chips and limes on board.
Albacore made a very flavorful ceviche. Raw albacore might be the best fish flavor. Bluefin has an amazing sushi texture, but in our ceviche never got much firmer. It seems better in sushi rolls, sashimi, or maybe a poke. But perhaps that’s cause it was a really high-quality fish and I felt bad cutting it into small enough chunks.
Bonito was similar to the Albacore. It turned out really nice, but we didn’t have excellent ingredients laying around. Hopefully next time it’ll be less like a plain bowl of limey fish.
But along came the calico bass. We were just waiting for our first white fish but didn’t know it. The opaque meat turned bright white and firmed up perfectly. Taylor gets credit for this round of ceviche turning out perfect. Although I think she learned to taste the Jalapeno before adding all of it to the dish. It was HOT. California Jalapenos seem to be more aggressive (and unpredictable).
