This is a recipe that someone posted a question about in my sandwich forum. I have only used palmito, heart of palm, in recipes that I learned from my time living in the Republic of Panama. The recipe listed below is a method of preparing the palmito to be eaten on crackers or as a sandwich. Below it is a recipe for ceviche, a cold, fish salad that pairs perfectly with palmito.

2 -14 oz cans of hearts of palm (palmito)
4 -5 lettuce leaves
8oz fresh lime juice
Salt, to taste
fresh ground black pepper, to taste
1 large vine ripened tomato, chopped
1 red, yellow or orange sweet pepper, chopped
1 cup mayonnaise, optional
Top with ceviche (see recipe below)
Toasted bread (small) loaf or flatbread

Cut the heart of palm into small bite-sized cubes and pile on lettuce lined bread slices. Sparingly, squeeze lime juice over each sandwich. Add a tiny dash of salt and fresh pepper. Mayonnaise is usually used rather sparingly in Central America - so, feel free to eliminate the mayo and up the lime juice and salt and pepper.


Ceviche
1 lb firm white fish. Medium shrimp can be substituted for fish.
1 small onion
1 clove garlic
4 or 5 sprigs of cilantro
1 small (¾", 2 cm) hot chili, base it on the heat you and your guests can handle
about 8 limes, squeezed or 1 cup of processed lime juice
¼ teaspoon salt, and pepper to taste

Cut fish into ½" (1 cm) cubes. Mince the onion, garlic, and chili coarsely. Chop the cilantro very finely. Mix all of the ingredients and refrigerate tightly covered for at least 3 hours, better is overnight. Serve alone with corn tortillas, tortilla chips, or crackers. Serve on top of palmito salad on a warm, crusty bread roll.

This ceviche sits beautifully on the prepared palmito and should be served on a crunchy, (warm) French bread roll or potato roll. As always, keep it cooling in the refrigerator until you are ready to serve and add a new ingredient or two based upon your own preferences. Palmito seems to work best with ingredients from its homelands, for instance, central america, south america, etc.,