Carmen's Encebollado
Recipe Author: Carmen Rosa Eca Panta
Hometown: Lobitos, Peru
Cabrilla is a common species along our coastline. Everyone here grew up eating cabrilla. It is very delicious.
My brother is a fisherman and he always brings me fresh fish when he can. Somedays, the sea is too rough to fish. Sometimes, we can't find cabrilla as often as before. He brings me the cabrilla when he can and I cook this recipe for my family.
Encebollado with rice, onion, egg and sweet potato. Photo by Jesús Espinoza Panta.
Ingredients
1 Entire cleaned fish (we use Cabrilla, but other white fish, like rockfish, would work well)
2 onions
A few colorful peppers
1 tbsp cumin
1 tbsp chili pepper
½ tsp salt
Cooking Oil
A splash of white vinegar
2 boiled eggs
A handful of olives
2 sweet potatoes
Rice
Carmen Rosa Eca Panta
Photo by Jesús Espinoza Panta.
I learned this recipe as a little girl. Our school offered a cooking class one time, and together with my friends, we learned how to cook a traditional dish from our town using the cabrilla, a fish that is well known.
How to Prepare
Step 1
Cut the onion and pickled chili into long strips and put them to rest in a bowl with the white vinegar.
Step 2
Heat oil in a frying pan. Fry the onion and pickled chili
Step 3
Then we add the tablespoon of chili pepper, tablespoon of cumin and a half teaspoon of salt.
Mix together, and fry for a few more minutes.
Step 4
Clean, scale and butterfly your fish. Make a few cuts on skin side to let it cook evenly.
Heat another pan with cooking oil. Place the cut, clean fish meat side down in the pan to fry.
Step 5
To finish and accompany the dish, we make rice.
In addition, to decorate our onions, it is tradition to put boiled egg, olives and boiled sweet potato on top.
All photos by Jesús Espinoza Panta.