Tiradito Nikkei de Ají Amarillo
Tiradito Nikkei de Ají Amarillo·(tee-rah-dee-toh nee-kay deh ah-hee ah-mah-ree-yoh)
Para Picar y Empezar (The Front Porch Snacks & Starters)
Long before fusion became a dirty word in American fine dining, Japanese immigrants in Peru were quietly creating culinary magic in their own kitchens. They took their ancestral respect for raw fish, sliced it beautifully thin, and married it with the vibrant, spicy fire of the Andean coast. The result is Nikkei cuisine, and the tiradito is its crown jewel. Unlike ceviche, which sits and cooks in its marinade, a tiradito is dressed at the very last second. This is a fifteen-minute appetizer that looks like a high-end restaurant dish but is completely achievable on a Tuesday night. Keep your plate ice-cold, use a razor-sharp knife, and don't skimp on the aji amarillo.
Ingredients
- sashimi-grade white fish or tuna1 lb
- lime juice1/2 cup
- aji amarillo paste3 tbsp
- soy sauce1 tbsp
- toasted sesame oil1 tsp
- fresh ginger1 tsp
- garlic1 small clove
- sweet potato1 med
- cancha or choclo1/4 cup
- fresh cilantro1 handful
- toasted sesame seeds1 tbsp
- flaky sea salt1 pinch
Method
- 01
Chill the canvas.
Place a large serving platter and your fish fillet in the freezer for fifteen minutes. A cold plate is the ultimate secret to keeping the fish pristine, and partially freezing the flesh makes delicate slicing infinitely easier for a home cook.
- 02
Build the leche de tigre.
In a mixing bowl, vigorously whisk together the lime juice, aji amarillo paste, soy sauce, sesame oil, ginger, and garlic until the mixture is smooth and emulsified, then stash it in the fridge until the exact moment of serving.
- 03
Slice the fish with respect.
Remove your fish from the freezer, hold your sharpest knife at a forty-five-degree angle to the cutting board, and pull the blade toward you in one smooth, continuous stroke to create translucent strips about an eighth of an inch thick. Avoid sawing back and forth, which tears the delicate muscle fibers.
- 04
Assemble the plate.
Retrieve your ice-cold platter from the fridge and lay the slices of fish onto it, slightly overlapping them like shingles on a roof or the scales of a fish.
- 05
Dress and serve immediately.
Bring the platter to the table and, right before eating, pour the cold leche de tigre generously over the fish. Scatter your sweet potato, cancha, cilantro leaves, and sesame seeds across the top, finish with a tiny pinch of flaky sea salt, and eat immediately—a tiradito waits for no one.
Notes
Embrace the jarred paste.
Boiling and peeling fresh aji amarillo in an American suburb is an exercise in futility. High-quality jarred paste is exactly what the diaspora uses to get that authentic, nostalgic hit of heat and sunny yellow color.
Sourcing your fish.
Don't let raw fish intimidate you. 'Sashimi-grade' simply means the fish was commercially flash-frozen to kill parasites. Buy high-quality frozen portions from a trusted fishmonger or supermarket sushi counter and thaw them safely in the fridge overnight.
Sillao and kion.
Don't be surprised to find soy sauce and ginger in a Peruvian recipe. The Japanese diaspora wove these ingredients—known locally as sillao and kion—into the local pantry over a century ago, providing the essential umami backbone of Nikkei cuisine.
The emulsion trick.
If you want a truly restaurant-quality, velvety sauce that coats the fish rather than pooling at the bottom of the plate, toss a tiny one-inch scrap of the raw fish into a blender with your leche de tigre ingredients and blend for ten seconds. The protein acts as a binder.
From Cook Peruvian in America.