Recipe by our good friend and incredible artist, Steve Rice. Check out his work here.
While queen conch make an iconic showpiece as a memento of a Caribbean holiday, they also make a delicious, citrusy salad that showcases the sea snail’s sweetness.
Growing up in South Florida where conch dishes are common, I learned to love it in all its forms, whether frittered, fried or in chowder. But on a trip to Bimini long ago, the secret to this dish was revealed to me and instantly made it my favorite.
Essentially ceviche, it’s simple to prepare, requires few ingredients and no cooking. The acid in the lime juice “cooks” the conch without heat. I’ve slightly modified the recipe I learned and it’s been a hit for decades. Feel free to tinker with proportions to suit your own tastes. You really can’t go wrong, and your patience will be your only enemy as you wait on lime juice to do its work.
Ingredients:
- 1 lb tenderized conch meat
- Half a medium-sized red onion
- 1 medium-sized, almost-ripe tomato
- Half bag of mini sweet red, yellow, orange peppers
- Fresh-squeezed lime juice
Instructions:
- Juice your limes and set aside. You may need 6-8 of them if they’re small.
- Dice conch into pieces about as big as your thumbnail.
- Dice the peppers, onion and tomato.
- In a non-metallic bowl, combine all of your diced ingredients. Toss them around until they’re uniformly blended.
- Pour enough lime juice into the bowl to cover your mixture and mix again.
- Cover the bowl and place it in the refrigerator for 4-6 hours. You can even let it sit overnight.
Once you see that your conch is firm and completely opaque, you’re good to go. Enjoy it on crackers with a sprinkle of your favorite hot sauce and an icy Caribbean lager.
A few notes:
Conch meat has a fibrous membrane on one side, which often accounts for its reputation as being “tough”. Either run it through a cuber a couple of times or use a meat tenderizing mallet to break up the membrane before you dice the meat.
I use a little over half a bag of mini sweet peppers to a pound of conch. If you prefer, you can use larger peppers and include green pepper and adjust your proportions to taste. A firm, almost-ripe tomato holds up best in the lime juice.
Because there’s a lot of liquid, you’ll want sturdier crackers. All the better if you can get your hands on Cuban crackers or Jamaican cream crackers.
