CEVICHE is a perfect summer appetizer: light, refreshing and cooking-free. Citrus — sometimes lemon or bitter orange, but in this case lime — does the “cooking” for you, by denaturing the proteins in the seafood in much the same way that heat does.

It doesn’t get much simpler than this: a few minutes of chopping, a few seconds of stirring and a quarter of an hour of doing absolutely nothing. That’s the beauty of ceviche.

I’d argue that scallops are the ideal seafood for ceviche, especially for the wary. With a scallop, you don’t eat the guts, as you do with an oyster or clam, you eat a muscle. That means there’s less chance of contamination. (Most raw-seafood lovers have had a tainted oyster or clam, but I’ve never had a bad scallop.)

In the winter, I’d choose bay scallops, but in the summer, sea scallops are best; they should be dry, not sitting in liquid. (The tiny calicos, often incorrectly and dishonestly labeled “bays,” are less flavorful.)