Wasted away again in Margaritaville

Not really....but what we did do is eat our way around Margaritaville! We just spent over a week in Key West and had a great time! Spent most of our time in the water, scuba diving, playing on wave runners, parasailing and just hanging out at the beach. We spent the rest of our time EATING!!! On this trip, we decided to try some of the great places off the main drag. We took the advice of Megan, the manager at Dive Key West, and visited some of the restaurants on Stock Island. After our dive on Father's Day, we stopped at Chico's Cantina, Megan said the salsa and chips and the sangria are fantastic. We had some time to kill as they unloaded the dive boat and took all our things back to the shop, what better way to kill time; eating and drinking! We did order a pitcher of sangria and chips and salsa, but Brie, Brett and I were extremely interested in their Hogfish Ceviche, so we decided to try it, especially after the owner mentioned that her son just caught it that morning. We were not disappointed!

I knew nothing about Hogfish before we went diving that day, but had saw one on the dive so asked about it. Hogfish are plentiful in the Florida Keys on many coral reefs and are considered to have high quality, soft and tasty flesh. It has fourteen dorsal spines, eleven dorsal soft rays, eleven anal spines, and ten anal soft rays. The coloring varies but is usually brownish red with a black spot at the bottom of the dorsal fin. Their habitats are often over coral reef areas. (From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) For those who have not enjoyed ceviche, it is a dish comprised of raw seafood, marinated in a citrus-based sauce, lemons and limes are the traditional citrus ingredients in ceviche. In addition to creating a fantastic flavor, the citrus also pickles the fish. Therefore, the fish generally tastes as though it has been cooked.

This dish was so good, one of the first things I did when we got home was try to recreate the recipe, this was very close. There was no hogfish at our local store, so I substuted grouper and instead of sangria, I had margaritas!

Ceviche

1/2 lb of fresh grouper
3 fresh limes, juiced (depending on size of your limes, you may need more)
1/2 lg. red onion, coarsely chopped
1 or 2 stalks of celery, coarsely chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 beefsteak tomato, coarsely chopped
1 cup Clamato Juice
1 jalapeño or less, depending on taste, finely chopped
Hot sauce of your choice
Fresh cilantro, to taste, chopped
Bag of flat Tostada shells (I found these in the Mexican section of our store)

Cut fish into small chunks. Spread fish over the bottom of a glass casserole dish. Try to make sure there’s only one layer of fish. Squeeze limes over fish. Be sure all of the fish is coated as this is what will “cook” the fish. If all of the fish isn’t covered, juice more limes. Place dish in refrigerator for 15 minutes.
Remove dish from fridge and stir in onions, pat down to one layer and put back in fridge for another 15 minutes.
Remove from fridge again and stir in remaining ingredients using one or two drops of hot sauce.
Chill for a half hour.

Spoon onto Tostada shell, serve with additional chips or the broken shells and offer more hot sauce for those who like it hot, hot, hot.