So while we were at the farmer’s market this weekend to pick up some little neck clams and locally caught shrimp, we picked up the veggies we needed for the ceviche. Look at the bounty below..cucumber, fresh roma tomatoes, a bunch of onions and cilantro.

For our first try at ceviche, we didn’t want to use our coveted local shrimp until we had the perfect ceviche recipe. So we decided to make tilapia ceviche for this go around.

Ceviche is basically seafood marinated in citrus juices. The citric acid breaks down the proteins, effectiviely “cooking” the seafood. Most hispanic countries have their own versions of ceviche. We started with a peruvian ceviche and a mexican ceviche.

Peruvian ceviche (as told to me by a photographer friend who lived in Peru for 5 years – thanks Andrea!) is fish cut into small cubes, marinated in lemon juice with onions, cilantro and cumin. Since cumin and cilantro are two of my favorite flavors – it was a no-brainer to try this one. Typically it is served with corn on the cob and sweet potato (but we skipped that part since we were making two ceviches plus some fresh shrimp).

Mexican ceviche (as presented on the food network in Mexican Made Easy) is fish marinated in lime juice and then drained and mixed with diced tomato, cucumber, onion, cilantro and a serrano. How can it be bad when it is basically my salsa recipe with added fish and cucumber? We substituted clamato with V-8 and a large splash of clam juice. Marcela suggested in her show serving it on top of a tortilla spread with mayonnaise…we skipped that part and ate it with blue tortilla chips. Embarrassingly enough, when I just looked at the photo, we forgot to add the cilantro to the mexican version. My only excuse is that unfortunately the cilantro from the farmer’s market was really bland…so after we started the marinating, Andy ran to the grocery store to pick up more cilantro.

All in all we liked both ceviches. Be warned – they are very potent in their citrus flavors…a little ceviche goes a long way. We will definitely be trying both of these recipes again and perhaps, testing other latin versions as well.

Peruvian on the left, Mexican on the right.

I hope you are enjoying Weekend Dish. Andy and I are sure enjoying cooking together in the kitchen and trying new recipes. Because we loved the little neck clam recipe from last week, we found another to try this week. Stay tuned for a post next weekend on Little Neck Clams with Sausage, Tomatoes and Onion over Linguine inspired by Emeril.

We went to the farmer’s market in Stonington Borough  this weekend and the bonus with New England farmer’s markets is fresh seafood.  We missed out on the local shrimp  (we will be getting there promptly at 9am next week) but decided to branch out and get little neck clams (which we have never ever cooked prior to today).  We also picked up a 1/4 lb of Stonington (local) scallops.

The scallops were easy – pan-fried in butter (with minced garlic) until golden brown.  Add a bit of paprika and a squeeze of lemon while cooking.  They were super tasty and a perfect appetizer while finishing up our pasta dish.  (1/4 lb was 5 scallops – a little bigger than quarter sized).

On to the little neck clams.  After an exhaustive search of foodnetwork.com, I found that a lot of people like to put sausage with their clams.  We will definitely try this next time but my plan this time was to use up some summer squash (from a neighbor) and some broccoli (also bought at the farmer’s market)  I decided on a garlic pasta with veggies and clams.

Ingredients:

Olive oil
3 garlic cloves
onion, diced (maybe 1/3 of a yellow onion – leftovers from gazpacho night)
crushed red pepper flakes (a few shakes of the mongo sized container)
White wine (chardonnay)
Juice of 1/2 lemon
1 dozen little neck clams, washed and scrubbed
fresh linguine (from grocery store)
broccoli (from farmer’s market)
summer squash (diced, from wonderful neighbors)
salt

1. start pot of water to boil.  salt water.

2. Heat skillet with olive oil (barely covering bottom of pan)

3.  Add garlic cloves and onion to skillet and add a few shakes of crushed red pepper.  After about 3 minutes, garlic and onions are softening but not browned – remove garlic.

4. Add 1/4 white wine and juice of 1/2 lemon.  Bring to a simmer.

5. Add pasta to boiling water and cook al dente.

6. Add clams to skillet and cover.  Cook until clams open up.  Throw out clams that do not open – we had 1.

At this point, we weren’t entirely sure what to do but didn’t want to overcook the clams.  Most recipes said to wait until they all open then dump into pasta.  I was nervous about overcooking so I removed about three at a time as they became fully opened.  One clam didn’t open at all so we threw it away.

7. Remove pasta from water and put in large serving bowl.

8.  Add broccoli to boiling pasta water for 3 minutes to slightly cook.

9.  While the clams were cooking, we added zucchini into the skillet.

10.  Dump entire skillet into the pasta bowl along with cooked broccoli.

11.  Toss pasta (this is where you would add the pasta water to make more sauce if needed…if your husband didn’t already dump out the pasta water and clean the pot).  Luckily we didn’t need any extra moisture.

I did add some fresh ground sea salt to the pasta at the table.

I wish I would have remembered to take a photo before we ate after all this is a photography blog…I remembered half way thru and figured noone would really want to see a half eaten plate of clam and veggie pasta.  Tomorrow we will have leftover pasta and veggies with leftover chicken.  Hannah liked the pasta but didn’t try the clams…she only eats her clams fried with ketchup.  Leah wouldn’t even try it.

And because this is a photo blog and I forgot a food photo.  One of my Dora lover digging her toes in the sand on the beach in Stonington Borough before we headed over to the farmer’s market.

Here is your rather large sneak peek because I couldn’t choose my favorites!

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The beautiful family!