Coctel de mariscos in Tulum Pueblo at El Camello – the puppets swoon so much that they almost fall in and get marinated by lime juice

Although we have been taken up with rhetoric-related battles over tears and corpses in Turkey as of late, the Karagöz puppets do want me to recognize that it is time to get back to the telling of the highlights of our hiatus in Tulum, Mexico.

As Karagöz was the *most* fussy about me getting back to blogging, I asked him to describe the highlight of his Tulum experience (other than swinging from palm tree to palm tree at our hotel, the Cabañas Tulum Hotel).

Screeching with glee, he just yelled out the only words of Spanish he cares to remember – namely “cóctel de mariscos” and headed to the local fishmarket to try to recreate the lusciousness of what we discovered at Tulum Pueblo’s El Camello Restaurant…

El Camello Restaurant, Tulum Pueblo, Quintana Roo, Mexico

Here is a recipe from Saveur magazine that you may want to try…but I doubt it will rival El Camello’s work…afiyet olsun!

Cóctel de Mariscos (Seafood Cocktail)

SERVES 4

INGREDIENTS

2 lb. medium cooked shrimp, peeled, deveined, tails removed
½ cup shucked raw clams
1 cup tomato juice
¼ cup olive oil
2 tbsp. fresh lime juice
2 tbsp. minced red onion
1 ½ tsp. Mexican hot sauce, such as Cholula
1 ½ tsp. Worcestershire sauce
4 cloves garlic, peeled
2 canned chipotle chiles in adobo, plus 2 tbsp. adobo sauce from can
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
¼ cup thinly sliced cilantro
½ avocado, halved, pitted, peeled, and thinly sliced
Saltine crackers, for serving

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Place 12 whole shrimp in a small bowl and reserve. Roughly chop remaining shrimp and place in a large bowl with clams. Cover and refrigerate for 1 hour. Meanwhile, combine tomato juice, oil, lime juice, onion, hot sauce, Worcestershire, garlic, chipotles with adobo sauce, and salt and pepper in a blender, and purée until smooth; refrigerate cocktail mix until chilled.

2. Divide seafood mixture among 4 chilled sundae glasses, and sprinkle with cilantro; pour cocktail mix over top. Place 3 reserved whole shrimp on the edge of each glass, and place avocado on top; serve immediately with crackers.

Copyright © 2012 SAVEUR. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited….(Karagoz is giggling, as he just cut and pasted this from the website, hope he doesn’t get caught – it was all for a good cause!)