Welcome to Vic Glenn Radio's Eat, Drink, and Be Merry show, where we love to talk about food, drink, recipes, and techniques, and where to shop, taste, and play. Let's go! Hey everybody, excited to have Chef Ivan Flowers back on the show. You know he's a five-star chef, and also a culinary instructor in Temecula Valley in Southern California, and he teaches youth-entined how to cook, which is awesome, and today he has a super easy recipe that I think even I could make other than I'm allergic to seafood, so I'll have to wear gloves. But it is mixed seafood ceviche, it serves four, and literally I think we can all do this. So welcome back Chef, how are you? Good, good, nice to be back, how are you? Doing good, doing good with honor lake, but there's no seafood in it, but there's fresh fish. Can you make ceviche out of fresh fish, or does it always have to be seafood fish? Oh sure, oh no, you can use some of the best fish is like walleye and pike out of the great legs, is really really good. I want to help, oh, a trout makes very good ceviche, but yeah, you can use fresh water fish. Okay, well this is how easy this recipe is, you get a pound of frozen raw seafood mix, you thought. Well, you can do that, it's better to always use fresh, it's better to always use fresh, okay, so this is if you're in a hurry. Yeah, but you can, if you get something that's called block frozen, where they basically they're freezing it on the boat and it's block frozen and by the time you throw it out, it's not going to retain that much water, but you can use both. What I did was, this was a mixy food where, you know, it had muscles in it, it had serenees in it, it had lobster in it, it had white fish in it, so I was using that, but basically if you can get fresh, get fresh. So Chef, I've been, you know, you're using mixed seafood, right, so would you just, if you were going to go make this using fresh, could you go, okay, I'm going to put some muscles, like you're saying, you're going to do some crabs, some lobster, are there specific seafoods that you want to do? That's a good question, that's really, you actually can do a combination of both. So for the raw fish, you want to use something white, flaky, and sweet, halibut, flounder, soul, striped bass, cod, pollock. You want to cut those into about a quarter inch pieces, you want to go scent. When you marinate it, you can add, when you marinate the fish, you marinate it for about a half an hour in the lemon and the lime, and then you add, I add pico de gallo to it, and let it sit for another hour in the fridge. When I go to mix it in the bowl altogether, that's when I add my cooked muscles, my cubed up cook lobster, and my cooked shrimp. I don't put that in raw, I actually put it in cooked, because while they're shrimp and mussels, they get kind of weird when you marinate them raw. So you have now a dichotomy of raw and cooked, and it's really nice on a palate, the wonderful mouth feel, it's a wonderful texture, but those three, I do cooked. Now, here's the question from someone who does not eat fish, right, allergy wise. So I have no clue, and so sorry if everybody already knows the answer. Would you mix seafood and fresh fish in the same dish? Well, what do you mean by seafood and fresh fish? Like fresh water fish, I mean, so would you take? Oh, yes, yes, you can, sure. Absolutely, absolutely you can, yeah, like if you wanted to put some trout in it, for sure, you could. You just want to stay away from anything that's oily, you don't want to use salmon, you don't want to use mackerel, you want to use really sweet white ferm. So this, this kind of ceviche is only with fish, right, so it's basically you're using the acid of the citrus, and then later the pico de gallo, because of the chili right in there, to to marinate, and that actually cooks, yeah, the acid actually cooks it, yeah, but if you go too long, it actually makes it very nearly and cloudy, because too much acid then goes into the flesh, and it breaks it down to a point where it's not going to be fun to eat. You want it where it has that integrity, and it's just marinated enough where it's fresh, you know, it's super fresh, and I like to serve it cold, and in a refrigerated bowl, refrigerated fork, you know. Okay, and then would you put avocado with it? You could. You could. I feel like avocado wants to be there. Like you would put the scallion and the cilantro on top, and then little pieces of avocado would be nice. Yeah, okay. Would work well, nice, nice mouth feel. Would it go well with salad? Like if you had a salad on the side? Yes, sure. Well, you could even mix it in through salad a little bit. If you wanted to put, you know, a little bit of a very crisp iceberg or crisp romaine, you can certainly mix that in a little bit. Well, you could do a nice little salad on the side. I like to serve it with crispy bread, crackers. It's very refreshing and light, especially in the summer. And then that would go nice with like a light white wine or light beer, something light, that way, something like a light beer or sardine. Yeah. Yeah. Feel the margarita coming on. It's because we're right by the water right now as we talk. I'm looking at the margarita. Yeah. Now, would you like so we're doing this is it's something you don't have to cook, which I think is great in the summer months who wants to heat up the kitchen, right? So this is something that's easy to do. It's delicious. It's quick, especially if you have people coming over right last minute, you could throw this together pretty quick, you know, even though it has to chill, right? Yeah. But would you be able to use like the ceviche method with any other kind of protein or is this strictly for fish? I mean, it can probably work in other proteins. Like if you were using very thin beef and very thin pork and stuff, it's not really pickling. It's, you know, pickling would be vinegar, sugar, and salt. It's really a light marination. So if you had like really, really nice, let's say, thin sliced filet and you wanted to kind of do it that way, it's going to work really well. So like a steak tartar, but with a little bit of a different marinade. Yeah. Okay. So it's not really cooking it then because, because he will eat sushi and fresh fish all the time. That's what he's saying. You want it as fresh as possible or block frozen. That's a good thing to know. Where do you get like the frozen block of fish? Do you have grocery store or do you have to go to a fishmonger or how do you get that? It depends on what grocery store is. If they serve it block frozen, a lot of times they'll say it on the package. You know, it'll be in the freezer and it's like block frozen packed on the boat, you know, so versus, you know, you want it packed immediately. Because really a lot of seafood now in this country is a portion and then block the IQF frozen. By doing that, if they freeze it just normally, the fish, when you take it out of the package, you squeeze it. All the water comes out. It's just tons of water. But by block freezing it, what happens is it kind of just keeps the fish fresh without letting too much water in. It's a process that they use when they IQ individually quick freeze things. And it's very doable. That's cool. You know, especially if you live away from the ocean, you know what I mean? It's like if you live in the Midwest, well then you're going to get a lot of fresh fish. I mean people really live off of fish when they have fish, you know, if they like fish and it's in their, you know, town. It's like, yeah, boat to table. You know, it's, you know, clean to get and easy. And I think it's healthy for you, right? It's a good source of protein that's healthy. Oh, yeah. Yeah, fish is very healthy, you know. And of course, you know, it depends, you know, when you're eating the oily fish, like you're eating the, you know, the mackerel, you know, you're eating the salmon. It's got the omegas and it's got the healthy oils that you really need. So seafood is good. And then again, you've got to watch certain seafood as a lot of mercury. And you've got to kind of check the list and see what's high on mercury, certain tuna can be high, some striped bass. I mean, if you think about it, when I was a kid, they fished the Hudson River in New York commercially for striped bass. That's wild. It's a wild concept. Yeah, we need to know, but now look at what they're, they're fishing lionfish now. Yeah, you know, that that's a, people are starting to eat lionfish because it's invasive and invasive species. And so that to me is fascinating of how we can change our palate to, you know, so I always thought the lionfish was beautiful personally. Like, yeah, it is beautiful. I grew up, you know, struggling with them. And now I know it's like, no, you're not cool, but you are. But I wonder about that now, like changing up what it's like to introduce a new protein source to diners, you know, let's let's eat lionfish. Because if I, from what I understand, it's also incredibly toxic. So you better, maybe you don't want to sit in a Ceviche lionfish. You might want to cook it more or. Yeah, yeah. It's like pufferfish, you know? Yeah. It's like, what is it? What is it? Fugee? You know, the pufferfish. Fugee? Yeah, and the pufferfish are beautiful. It's so cool. Yeah. And it's like, you take your life in your hands unless the chef knows what they're doing. Mmm. Yeah, I would want to know the bite on death. What are the, what are the kids like that you're teaching when you start bringing out like, you know, octopus and stuff like that? That's all, you know, interesting. You know, I, I don't touch octopus anymore. I don't want to go. They're just incredibly beautiful creatures. Sentient beings. I don't really deal with octopus. You know, there, I keep it very, I keep it very basic. A lot of these young students, they, like, smoke salmon, a cold smoke salmon, a lot of them have never had that. They've never tried, I'll bring scallops in. They've never had scallops. As far as mussels and oysters and clams, I wouldn't do them raw because it's too much of a liability. But like with the advanced glasses, there are times where, you know, we did the cooked mussels in a non-alcoholic garlic chard in a broth. We did clams where we baked them with press yard and garlic and breadcrumbs, so we cooked them. And for the most part, they're pretty adventurous. But then I have some students that they're afraid to eat a mushroom. They're afraid to eat a oven roasted tomato. You know, they're not very adventurous. If something smells, um, I just showed them a video up in Scandinavia, I think it's Norway, where they eat it's called scrums, and it's the canned herring that littered the smelly of food in the world. Isn't that the same as Ludafisk? Yeah, out of Minneapolis, yeah, right? Or the shark, when they hang the shark for like a year. Yeah, that's, you know, that's Viking food, man. Yes, yeah, I mean, there are some great cheeses in the world that smell they knock you on your socks, but when you eat them, they're absolutely delicious. So kids, they're very big with smell. If it's smelling, if it's like blue cheese to them is a leap to the moon. Oh, I love blue cheese, but only like, you know, you have so much. Okay, so speaking of cheese, I have a question, because, uh, you know, we were recently in Tucson and my friend Eva's, like, here, Lisa, I know you love Brie. Here's this whole thing of Brie in the fridge. And I'm like, dude, I'm in. And then like, I realized I'd only had like, she had like a quarter of a wheel or whatever. And I'm like, Nancy, let's go. Let's go get some bubbly. This is good stuff, you know, but then I realized I had no clue what I was doing with it. You know, it's normally you have a little slice or whatever. But this was too much for Lisa to handle. I should have called you. I can help with the we should do a show on cheese. We should, because on cheese, yeah, we should, because it's, yeah, it's wonderful. We really, oh, and I have a cheese story for you on to, I have another cheese story. So I want to do a show on cheese. We really should, especially with, you know, the fall and the holidays coming, you know, you can be adventurous with cheese. So here I am with this brie. And I made quesadillas out of brie cheese. And can I tell you, this is not something to say no to. This is a good thing. If you have good tortilla and a little bit of brie, now you could add a little chateau or you could add a little bacon. I do believe I added a little bacon in there. And I'm just saying, or is it salami? I did something like that. But the brie, yeah, that was really good. However, I don't understand what to do with this wax coating thing. Is it wax? Is it not? Can you eat it? Because I've always just been like, don't mess with your food. Just eat it and swallow it. That, that riny thing. Like, where are we on that thing with? Yeah, the thing with, yeah, you do, you definitely want to eat the rind. The thing with brie is you heated it, which is good. Like every Thanksgiving, Tracy bakes brie in a bowl, in a French bowl. So when you eat it, also, if you were to eat it straight, you want to take it out of the refrigerator and let it sit for at least an hour and a half, though it becomes runny and you don't want to eat a cold. Because if you eat a cold, it's like eating a piece of butter. But if you have a triple cream and you let it sit and it gets runny, yeah, you take your knife and you go right through that line into that cheese and you eat both together. Okay, so that's, that's why it was a little different. I just thought it was just because there was a lot of it. Okay, so there's a good, that's an awesome tip. I mean, it's just, you know, sometimes things like ceviche and cheat and having different cheeses. You don't have to do so much. And I wonder about like recipes that get too complex. It's fun. If we all want to be Julia Childs for a day, go for it. I say go for it. But when we're so busy and things, I still think the recipes like this that are like the ceviche, they're super healthy to have if you're not allergic like us. But I mean, that is like an easy to do recipe that I mean, could you, oh, you said you do not want to leave it in there too long. So like you don't want to marinate it while you're at work. But when you come home, you can marinate it and then, you know, do some work, go walk the dog, come back and have, you know, wine and ceviche, you know, as a side thing or as a main meal, right? So there is, yeah, there are some people that do 10 minute marinades. They cut up the fish, they put on the citrus, they wait about 10 minutes, and that's it, you know. I think a lot of people voting do this. They do it when they boat, you know. Yeah, yeah. This is fascinating to me. So can we do a cheese show? I want to talk cheese, but I do want to tell you this. We should definitely one day do a cheese show. Yeah. Let's do cheese. Let's do cheese. And we got wine and all that good stuff too. But I do have to tell you my cheese story, because I think you're going to appreciate this because I know you don't like us to buy anything processed, right? That isn't done properly. So we went to get gas on our way out of Tucson, you know, we're driving to Texas. And I dropped the credit card and it went down in the weird place in the seat. And I'm like, okay, so I'm looking, you know, we travel full time. So there's an excuse to this. But I've also done things like leave, like I've left a French fry in the car for over three years to see if it would ever change and it never did. Okay. Well, I'm looking for, and I do clean the car out, but this is this, this is one of those that take the cake. I go under the seat, looking for this credit card. And I don't know, but I know that I love Gouda. I really love Gouda. And I love Habarda. But Gouda, I think it's from living in South Africa, you have Edom and Gouda was like normal. Everybody had the whole wheel, like, and you didn't even put it in the fridge half of the time, depending on where you live. You know, it just depending. But oh my gosh, they had so many cheesemakers. I mean, it's Dutch, you know. Anyway, there's nothing like French eat and cheese, like when you go to a cheese place and they just pull it out. Like, anyway, so you know, this is not the same kind of stuff, but it's those slices that you get in the grocery store that I thought, oh, as we drive, we pull over, you know, have a rest, we can have cheese and crackers, right? Well, apparently, I don't know what I did, but there was cheese under my chair and has obviously been there through all kinds of temperatures. And all they did was harden up a little bit and curl, why didn't they melt? I was in Tucson in over 110 degree weather. Why didn't you know, it's interesting. Okay, I will tell you, it's very interesting because I've used, and my wife, the same thing, Gouda, for some reason, is not a good melting cheese. There are times I've put Gouda on flat breads, on bread, into the oven, under the broiler, and it fights you the entire time, but cheese has a hard time melting for every reason that is not a very good melting cheese. No, and that's what, well, okay, so in South Africa, the difference was that, and I just totally spaced on me because I just went, oh my God, it's this processed stuff, right? It's a process now, because it's sliced. What are they putting on it to make it do that? But in South Africa, we would use edam for that. If you wanted to melt it, it was edam. Yeah, it was processed, probably. Yeah, of course. Yeah, if it was pre-sliced, I mean, come on, they're putting stuff on it, and more than ones find the convenience, right? But I don't know how can, so then I'm like going, well, what happens? How is this even breaking down in our systems? Like, is it just curling up and eliminate the curl? I mean, I know that sounds terrible, sorry people, but I'm just saying, that's a little bit much, you know, but really interesting. Okay, so Ceviche, everybody, very simple, very easy, you can do some salad on the side, crackers, crispy bread, would you add any vegetables to your Ceviche? Like, if you had cucumber or something that could be marinated like that, because it seems to be quite... Yeah, I would give a nice crunch. I would add it at the end, otherwise it would get a little too marinated, so if you wanted to do a nice little, you know, little firm pieces, I would take the seeds out, take the skin off and just use the sides, do a medium dice, and throw that in at the end, for sure. Yeah, give a nice crunch. A little cabbage, well, crisp cabbage, chilled cabbage, beef. So basically Ceviche, you can get creative with it, and there's all different ways you can do it, but the recipe for Ivan's mixed seafood Ceviche is linked and listed in the show notes, and you can just go to blendradio and tv.com and type in Ceviche, and you'll find it. Thank you so much, Chef Ivan, always fun, but you're going to be on a cheese show, it's coming, everyone the cheese. Okay. Cheese always wins, right? Do you prefer like chocolate or cheese, which one? Oh, I have to go with cheese over chocolate. I do cheese, is that weird? Yeah. Cheese and bread, and I'm fine. When I went vegan, it was a hard thing because it wasn't anything else other than the problem with cheese. That's why I cannot be a vegan, is cheese, and bacon. I'm not gonna lie. I will listen, eat healthy. This is such a cool recipe for people to make. It's easy. I think your kids involved with it too, which is fun. And again, blendradio and tv.com. Thanks so much, Chef Ivan. We'll talk to you soon. You're welcome. As we recorded, it's Chef Ivan and Tracy, his wife's 15-year anniversary, so happy anniversary from all of us. Oh, thank you. Have fun. Have a good day. You too. Bye-bye. Take care. Bye-bye. Thanks for joining us here on Big Blend Radio's Eat, Drink, and Be Merry Show. Keep up with our podcasts at bigblendradio.com and our magazines at bigblendmagazines.com.
