This recipe is an inspiration from our recent visit to the beautiful town of Marone on Lago d’Iseo in Italy—a small valley village on the edge of a shimmering lake. It’s one of those places where you arrive and are mesmerized. At first, you can’t believe you’re so fortunate to be staying there, and then can’t believe people are so fortunate to call it home.

The hotel we stayed at also had a restaurant, Ristorante A Lago Marone, which was so good that we ended up eating there twice. Both times I ordered their trout ceviche appetizer with blood orange—the fish was fresh from the lake I could admire while eating it.

We decided to serve a version of this for a wine tasting, and checked first with our fishmonger to make sure the trout was fresh enough to make a ceviche. Instead of blood oranges, Ralph made a ceviche with grapefruit.

Instead of a lake, we enjoyed the trout ceviche while admiring great friends.

Ingredients (six appetizers):

• 4 trout filets from 2 large fresh trout (ask your fishmonger to filet them for you- it is a fiddly job as the fish are fairly small)
• Juice from one lime
• Juice from one large grapefruit 
• Two chili peppers chopped in large pieces, membrane and seeds removed
• 1 chili pepper chopped into tiny pieces
• One avocado, cut into small pieces
• Lettuce (we used a spicy Asian mix of lettuce from our garden)
• Sesame seeds
• Sesame oil
• Soya sauce

Instructions:

1. Remove the skin (see video) if still present
2. Remove the bigger bones from trout and slice into bite-size pieces.
3. Add the lime and grapefruit juice and larger chili pepper pieces and store container in the fridge for 6- 10 hours.
4. Assemble in cups or a plate layered with lettuce (drizzled with a bit of soya sauce), fish pieces, avocado, sprinkled with the small chili pieces, sesame oil, and seeds

🥂 Wine pairing:

We paired the trout ceviche with a delicious Daniel Mattern hop and grape wine (bubbly sauvignon blanc fermented with hops)—a surprisingly fruity and bubbly wine with hoppy undertones (IPA Sauvignon Blanc!).

Tip:

• If you have leftovers, this makes a nice lunch the next day rolled up in rice paper. I added in cilantro and tomato.