One of my fondest memories of swag (aka Stuff We All Get) from my job is the seafood salad I enjoyed during my lab’s 2009 Christmas party. Every year we go to the Faculty House dining room and my very generous Boss buys us all a wonderful (buffet-style) lunch. That year on the salad table they were serving an amazing ceviche-style seafood salad and my friend and I totally OD-ed on it that year. No regrets.
On this Saturday, we decided to tap our new favorite Mexican muse Diana Kennedy for our appetizer. Technically, this recipe is not a proper ceviche. It’s more of a ceviche-style salad as none of the seafood are actually cooked in acid/citrus. Here, I prepped the shrimp simply in a frying pan (2 minutes per side) instead of macerating it and I blasted the squid in a blazing hot grill pan for about 3 minutes. I added both shellfish to some nice lime juice for about a half hour before adding avocado, tomato and cilantro. Not quite a ceviche, but it’s not quite ceviche weather or ceviche season, so everything was in perfect order.
The final product was delicious. The chewiness of cooked seafood wasn’t quite the same, but actually it was better in a way being cooked and then marinated. The slight chewiness was delightful and unexpected. Seafood, avocado and lime couple into an amazing taste combination, but I doubt I’m telling you anything you didn’t already know. Tomorrow, the main course. Stay tuned!
The Manhattan [food] Project 
This looks perfect for summer!