Panamanian ceviche, famous from Panama City's Mercado de Mariscos, is a simple lime-cured corvina with onion, culantro, and ají, served chilled in a cup.
Spoon up ceviche panameño — small cubes of fish turned opaque and firm by lime, sharp with onion, fragrant with culantro, a prickle of ají heat. Bite: the fish is fresh, clean, and tender-firm, the lime bright and mouth-puckering, the onion crunchy, the culantro pungent. Cold, sharp, and refreshing — eaten from a cup with crackers on a hot Panama City afternoon.
Lime juice's acid denatures the fish proteins, 'cooking' it to opaque firmness without heat — the cubes must be small and the fish very fresh. Culantro (not cilantro) and ají give the Panamanian character; serving cold and quickly keeps the fish from over-curing into toughness.
Variations
With octopus or shrimp. With mango. Spicier with habanero. With a coconut-milk version. With diced sweet pepper. Served over patacones.
On the Palate
Where Ceviche Panameño sits in the Panamanian flavor cloud
Watch the clock, not the ingredients: the lime acid keeps 'cooking' the fish, so pull it the moment the cubes turn opaque or the corvina toughens and dries out.
Ingredients
Serves 4How it's made
8 steps · 20 min active + 20 min waiting
- 110 min
Dice 500 g very fresh corvina (sea bass) into small 1-cm cubes.
- 25 min
Finely chop 1 small onion, culantro, and 1 hot pepper (ají).
- 32 min
Combine the fish with the onion, culantro, and pepper in a glass bowl.
- 42 min
Pour over the juice of 8-10 limes to fully cover the fish.
Watch outPour enough lime juice to fully submerge the fish—the cubes should float freely, not sit half-dry.
- 51 min
Season with salt and a little pepper.
- 620 min
Refrigerate 20 min, stirring once, until the fish turns opaque and firm.
Watch outThe fish is ready when the cubes turn from glassy to milky-white and feel springy-firm, not soft.
- 72 min
Taste and adjust lime and salt.
- 81 min
Serve cold in cups with saltine crackers.
