Shrimp Ceviche & Mango Salsa Cocktail
It’s a rare thing that I don’t see my handsome beau on a Saturday night; however, I had been hankering for a girl’s night in at my place and this Saturday was it. There is nothing like having company over to get your tail moving on house projects and I find it so fun to research recipes and figure out if I can wow my pals.
I picked out my fun food and did the shopping and then Joe helped me start putting it all together on Friday night and Saturday afternoon. Everything was spectacular and there were several firsts on the menu and, while we used some recipes for reference, we changed things up quite a bit.
I love things that make sense … like starting out the evening with really good wine and really good cheese. One of my gal pals is crazy about goat cheese … me too! So we have that some of that tangy chevre from France paired with some of Bathtub Gin’s Peaches & Honey Preserves.
I love using cool little skewers for bite sized morsels and I thought these turned out quite lovely and tasty. This is chevrette, a mild goat cheese from Holland, wrapped in slices of roasted red pepper… a great flavor combination.
And I love these little baby caprese salads skewers. When I’m entertaining, I’m always looking for delights that can at least be partially prepared ahead so I can have fun too! Both of these skewered cheeses fit the bill and were assembled while I sat in my sunny bay window in the early afternoon.
This fig and goat cheese bruschetta is a Cooking Light recipe. Two of these delights are only 138 calories and they were delicious! I made the fig jam the night before and while this is a last minute prep after your guests have arrived, they were easy and pretty fast.
Next? That beautiful seafood cocktail, of course!
I’m not much of a shrimp lover, but I have made shrimp escabeche a couple of times and it always turns out well, with the shrimp perfectly cooked. So… I thought I would take the idea of cooking the shrimp in acid and shake it up a bit. I decided that a ceviche sounded like a great idea.
Shrimp Ceviche & Mango Salsa Cocktail
Print recipe
| Serves | 6 |
| Prep time | 4 hours |
| Cook time | 2 minutes |
| Total time | 4 hours, 2 minutes |
| Allergy | Shellfish |
| Meal type | Appetizer, Salad, Starter |
| Misc | Gourmet, Pre-preparable, Serve Cold |
| Region | South American |
Ingredients
- 1lb Shrimp (jumbo, peeled, deveined, tails on)
- 4 Limes (juiced)
- 4 Lemons (juiced)
- 1 Orange (juiced)
- 2 Roma tomatoes (diced, seeds removed)
- 1/2 Red onion (thinly sliced)
- 1/2 bunch Cilantro (stemmed and finely chopped)
- 2 Mangos (diced into 1/2)
- 3 tablespoons Red pepper (finely chopped)
- 3 tablespoons Yellow pepper (finely chopped)
- 1 & 1/2 tablespoon Serrano chili (finely chopped)
- 1 & 1/2 tablespoon Cilantro (minced)
- 2 tablespoons Lime juice
Note
Pop 6 martini glasses in the freezer.
Directions
| Ceviche | |
| Step 1 | |
| Saute the shrimp in olive oil approximately one minute on each side, just until they turn pink, and place them in a colander, and immediately run them under cold water to stop the cooking | |
| Cevich | |
| Step 2 | |
| Add ingredients 2 thru 7 to a glass container and add the shrimp. Cover and let sit at room temperature. Place the ceviche in the refrigerator for 4 to 6 hours. | |
| Salsa | |
| Step 3 | |
| Combine the mango, red and yellow peppers, serrano chili, cilantro and juice of 2 limes. Chill in the refrigerator for one hour. | |
| Step 4 | |
| Place mango salsa in a chilled martini glasses. | |
| Step 5 | |
| Remove the shrimp from the ceviche and place them on top of the mango salsa. | |
The second course was my second South American dish … lime chicken empanadas. The fabulous thing about empanadas is that you can put almost anything inside that flaky dough and it is going to be tasty.
Lime Chicken Empanadas
| Serves | 14 |
| Prep time | 30 minutes |
| Cook time | 1 hour, 15 minutes |
| Total time | 1 hour, 45 minutes |
| Allergy | Egg |
| Meal type | Appetizer, Main Dish |
| Misc | Freezable, Pre-preparable, Serve Hot |
| Region | South American |
Ingredients
- 2 Chicken breasts (bone in)
- 2 teaspoons Mexican chili powder
- 1 tablespoon Olive oil
- 1/2 cup Red pepper (Finely chopped)
- 1/2 cup Onion (Finely chopped)
- 3 Limes (juiced)
- 4oz Mascarpone
- 1 & 1/2 cup Sour cream
- 1 cup Mexican cheese blend (shredded)
- 1 teaspoon Cumin (ground)
- 1 teaspoon Coriander (ground)
- 1/2 teaspoon Cayenne pepper (ground)
- 4 Pie crusts (purchased or from scratch)
- 3 Egg yolks
Note
This recipe makes a lot of empanadas ... 28! 2 are perfect for an appetizer portion and they freeze great, plus they are delicious.
Directions
| Step 1 | |
| Bring the chicken to a boil, cover and simmer 15 minutes. Then turn off and leave covered. After 45 minutes remove from the pan and place in the frig to cool. | |
| Step 2 | |
| Remove the skin and shred the chicken with two forks and mix in the Mexican chile powder. Pop this mixture back in to the frig while you prepare the other ingredients. | |
| Step 3 | |
| Saute the red pepper and onion in 1 tablespoon of olive oil | |
| Step 4 | |
| Combine remaining ingredients in a large bowl, add shredded chicken and sauteed onions and peppers. | |
| Step 5 | |
| Roll out one pie crust, nice and thin, 1/4" or less and using a 4" diameter plastic cup, cut circles in the dough. | |
| Step 6 | |
| Place a heaping tablespoon of the chicken mixture just south on center on each dough circle, fold over, pressing the edges together and crimp with a fork. | |
| Step 7 | |
| Repeat steps 5 and 6 for the other pie crusts. | |
| Step 8 | |
| Quickly whip the egg yolks and brush the egg on each empanada. | |
| Step 9 | |
| Bake 25 to 30 minutes, until golden brown. Serve with guacamole or pico de gallo and mascarpone or sour cream mixed with lime juice. | |
There were a couple of other things to nosh on … spinach and artichoke dip … yum! I had also picked up a sampler of hummus. And I made some pretty amazing meatballs and paired three each with two of the spinach and walnut raviolis Joe had made with some awesome sauce for the third small plate. By this point in the evening, the wine had been flowing for a while so I missed a photo opportunity, but it was all tasty.
And of course, if you’re having your girls over, you had better have some sweets! I went a little traditional with some baby pecan pies. I recently took a Viking class on French culinary basics and one of the things I learned was how to create an awesome pie crust. These little tarts were made with the Classic Pecan Pie recipe straight from the Karo Syrup website and my own, homemade crust. These are bake ahead, two bite delights and they turned out perfectly.
I also got a little crazy with dipping stuff in chocolate. I mixed semi-sweet and bittersweet dark Scharffen Berger chocolate together. I haven’t nailed down the chocolate tempering yet so stuff wasn’t all shiny and glossy, but it was still incredibly awesome.
First in the pool … strawberries. It’s a tad early for great strawberries, but they were still really good. Next … some Cape Cod’s Waffle Cut Kettle Chips with Sea Salt. Super crispy and sweet, these were awesome! And then …
There was the bacon. Uncured, slightly sweet, apple smoked bacon from Whole Foods, each strip quartered and made super crispy on a baking rack in a 400 degree oven. These were funky enough to make me very happy and tasty enough that they vanished rather quickly.
This was an awesome girlfriend night. The weather was perfect for hanging outside … there was a lot of good wine … some chocolate cigars … and, most important, some awesome females. I cannot wait to do it again!
