Scallop Tiradito (Ceviche

With Jose Duarte

Here is Jose Duarte’s recipe for Scallop Tiradito, the Japanese translation of Peruvian ceviche, made in Boston’s North End at his restaurant taranta. It is made, of course, with Peruvian peppers.  The rocoto paste and Aji Amarillo paste can be found at Frio Rico in East Boston, www.friorico.com, but Duarte also hopes to soon make these Peruvian ingredients available at Taranta.“Tiradito” is a ceviche-like treatment of fish cut like sashimi, evidence of the wave of Japanese farm workers who arrived in Peru in the late 19th century.  Ceviche is so popular in Peru there are two thousand “cevicherias,” trattoria-like restaurants specializing in the freshly marinated fish, in Lima alone.  Peruvians even have a word for the liquor produced when raw fish meets citrus:  leche de tigre - tiger’s milk. Chef Jose Duarte was born in Lima, spent much of his childhood in Venezuela, and now has a small but powerful restaurant in Boston’s North End called “Taranta,” where he’s created a wildly imaginative menu marrying Peruvian and Southern Italian cuisine.From Heather Atwood, Food for Thought, 2011.

Ingredients

3 U-10 fresh dry scallops (Scallop must be fresh)
5 cilantro leaves
rocoto paste
Aji Amarillo paste
Sea salt salt flakes, use trapanese or Maldon
3 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 garlic clove, peeled

Instructions

1. Remove the muscle texture attached to the body of the scallop, then aim to cut each scallop across its depth into 3 slices.
2. Make a lemon sauce by mixing the lemon juice with aji amarillo, garlic and cilantro. Use a hand blender or a regular blender.
3. Place 3 slices of scallop on the plate and pour over the lemon mix.   Add a little dollop of rocoto chili paste, then sprinkle with salt flakes.

Recipe courtesy of Jose Duarte, taranta, 2011.

Chef Jose Duarte was born in Lima, spent much of his childhood in Venezuela, and now has a small but powerful restaurant in Boston’s North End called “Taranta,” where he’s created a wildly imaginative menu marrying Peruvian and Southern Italian cuisine. Duarte opened Taranta with his wife Anna in 2000.  With backgrounds in food and hospitality, Jose and Anna believed they would be cooking Southern Italian cuisine, but Jose began finding his native Peruvian foods in the grocery store, and he began to experiment.  Nothing is traditional for Jose anymore.  He knows Peru and he knows Italian cuisine (mostly from his time among the Italian community in Venezuela), but his food simply can’t be categorized.  He freewheels his way through both cultures, experimenting with methods and ingredients, inventing a menu that can only be described as “Taranta.”  

The food is too spectacular not to be recognized.  Zagat named it one of the best new restaurants of the Decade.  Boston Magazine named it one of the top 50 Restaurants in Boston.  The Massachusetts Restaurant Association has just named Jose Duarte “Chef of the Year.”  Duarte is on the cover of this month’s “Stuff” magazine looking like a 6’5”-ish, broad-shouldered Puck, kissing a very large fish.  With smooth skin, silver hair pulled into a ponytail, and just enough sideburn to whisper “style,” Duarte is a robustly handsome man, charged with Latin vivacity and passion.  

He’s not only winning awards for his cuisine.  Last year the restaurant received the MassRecycles Award for its powerful efforts to increase recycling and eliminate waste.  The City of Boston awarded Taranta its Green Business Award.  The restaurant takes serious measures to lower energy costs from low-flow water sprayers to solar candles on the tables, to composting, taking its waste away to Brick Ends Farm, the composting facility in S. Hamilton, MA.  Duarte has converted four Mercedes 300D’s and one Golf TDI to run on the restaurant’s cooking oil.  He’s replaced all surface cleaners with ionized water, which basically “lifts” dirt and stains out with negatively charged water.  What began as a business plan to save money has evolved into a Certified Green Restaurant.  Taranta produces zero waste. Duarte emphasizes that lower energy costs translate into more money available for the best ingredients.  Lowering energy costs equals a better restaurant in many ways. From Heather Atwood, Food For Thought, 2011.