If I lived in Houston, which I don't, I would have an entirely unhealthy relationship with Escalante's. As it is, I demand to eat there at least once (I said at least) every time I visit. The worst part is, I have only ever tried one thing on their menu, and it is a salad. But it is the only salad I'll ever need for as long as I live.
Let me tell you about this salad. First, we have a bed of romaine lettuce, tossed in mango chipotle vinaigrette. I can see I've already got your attention. Greens are unimportant, though, they are merely a vehicle for deliciousness delivery. Next, we have avocado. So rich and creamy. Followed by the sweetness of fresh mango. Too sweet, you say? That's where the sliced red pepper comes in, to give it a kick. But where's the meat? Oh, I didn't mention? This thing is covered in shrimp ceviche, baby. It's true. Fresh shrimp, cold-cooked in lime juice until they're little maritime packages of zing, exploding in your mouth with citrus flavor. And finally, the coup de grace - a walnut-encrusted warm goat cheese medallion.
Is my love for this salad making you uncomfortable? Well it doesn't matter, because there is no Escalante's in North Carolina. It's OK, though, because what do we do when we can't have our favorite salad? That's right, scouts, we make it into tacos. Which is why I tried to make shrimp ceviche tacos last week. And now I'm going to tell you about it.
As I mentioned, shrimp ceviche is just shrimp, chilled and marinated in lime juice until the acid from the juice cooks the shrimp. I wasn't sure how many limes it would take to make enough juice to cover shrimp, so I bought several fresh limes, and some prepackaged lime juice (Flavored with extra chemicals!) just in case. I decided to only 'cevich' like 6 shrimp to start with, because I am but one person, and also I didn't want to ruin all of my high-quality frozen Target shrimp at once.
Turns out, though, that even just 6 shrimp require a lot of lime juice in order to cover them completely (which you must), so I decided to go with the fake lime juice. Spoiler alert, this was a mistake.
It's real because it's green!The ever-overwhelming internet gave me wildly conflicting times regarding the length of time that shrimp must marinate before it is fully cevich-ed. The longest time I saw listed was 24 hours, so I got all responsible and proactive and prepared them the night before I really wanted to eat them. (That is a lie. I wanted to eat them right away.)
Because my shrimp were poorly covered, I had to check on them periodically and flip them over. It was fun, like tending a little garden. A seafood garden. That is ready to harvest within 24 hours. The next night, I excitedly pulled them out of the refrigerator, and removed their tails. (I do not know why I didn't do that sooner. I could have used less juice!)
The outsides looked pink and cooked, but I was suddenly less than confident in my ability to cook shrimp with nothing more than limes and enthusiasm, so I cut a few open. Sadly, they looked a little gray and raw on the inside. (There is no photo of the raw insides, because of lime fingers.) I tasted a piece of one shrimp as an experiment, and briefly considered the benefits of food poisoning, since I was pretty stressed out last week and would also still like to lose those extra pounds.
It was upon tasting them that I realized the fake lime juice was a mistake. Or maybe it was the 24 hours of marination. In any case, fake lime juice is concentrated, so instead of the fresh burst of citrus I expected, I was faced with overwhelming limeade flavor. It tasted like those commercials where the cheese scientists shove a giant wheel of cheese into a single Cheez-it, except in this case someone shoved a whole package of powdered lemon Kool-Aid into a single shrimp.
In any case, I'd come this far, and I wasn't about to walk away now. I decided against attempting to food-poison myself, so I had no choice but to just microwave the damn things for a few seconds. They came out fully cooked, and no less worse for the wear, in spite of being far less classy and French than originally intended. Whatever, limeade-infused hillbilly microwave shrimp, just get in my tacos. And subsequently in my belly.
Garnish!(Red pepper, onion, and avocado)
Speaking of things that are classy, mangoes! They seem expensive, right? So instead I bought pineapple mango salsa from Whole Foods. It still cost me $95 for a small container, but at least someone did me the favor of cutting it all up, which has got to be worth at least $70.
Mmm... hundred-dollar fruit cubes.This stuff is tongue magic, by the way, and it has taken quite a bit of self-control not to just eat the whole tub at once with a spoon.
I assembled the shrimp, veggies, and fruit salsa on fresh corn tortillas I made by hand, using corn from my own organic garden. (Heh.) The looked downright delicious, sitting there. You could barely tell by looking at them that the shrimp were radioactive. And yet there still seemed to be something missing...
Ooohhhh yeah.Once I added some spicy sriracha sauce to my tacos, I was finally able to sit down and enjoy them. They were actually pretty good, and they only tasted a little bit like confusion and desperation.
P.S. I was halfway through eating the tacos before I remembered I had also purchased goat cheese (to replicate the salad, remember? from the top of this post? like, 3 years ago?). I made them again later, but instead of ceviching, I just sauteed the shrimp in butter and squeezed some fresh lime juice over them later. And I remembered to add a dab of goat cheese. It's no Escaviche Salad from Escalante's, but I'd be willing to eat it every day for the next 3 years or so.
P.P.S. Just to make sure we all learned something here... If you're going to make shrimp ceviche: 1) cut the shrimp into pieces first, and 2) use fresh lime juice.
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