Don’t get me wrong, you cant beat a good seabass or lemon sole but I also have a massive penchant for fish covered in bread crumbs, or even batter for that matter!
So I thought Id share my fishcake recipe – its so simple and perfect for middle weekday Wednesday! If like me your questioning if you should have a glass of wine….just pop open the bottle and start cooking!!
You will need:
4 Cod Fillets (or use Salmon for all the fish)
2 Smoked Haddock Fillets
About 8 medium (I like Maris Piper) Potatoes (peeled if you can be bothered) Boiled and Mashed
1 Lemon
1 Egg
4 spring onions finely chopped or just grate it!
2 tbsp Cream Cheese
2 tbsp Chopped Chives
Bread Crumbs (you can buy these in a bag at any supermarket!)
1 bag of Rocket
For the dressing
1 Cucumber (cut into strips)
1 Red Pepper (finely chopped)
200g Light Creme Fraiche
1 tsp Horseradish
Take all the skin off the fish and poach in a pan of half milk and half water. It should take about 10 mins! Once cooked add to the mashed potatoes and mix thoroughly. Season. Add the Egg, half the lemon juice, grate in some lemon zest, throw in the spring onions, cream cheese and chopped chives and mix again. Make into little round balls and press into the bread crumbs on each side. Fry in a little olive oil until brown on both sides.
For the sauce, simply mix together the cucumber, red pepper, creme fraiche and horseradish. Season to taste.
I like to drizzle some balsamic reduction on a plate and then serve the fish cakes with a few rocket leaves and a dollop of the sauce!
Below, the recipe uses fresh fish and then you chop it with your quisinart and make your fish sticks. I like the fish flakes in my fish cakes so I think I would like the above recipe better, but I plan on trying them both.
New England Style Fish Cakes
Ingredients:
â– 2 pounds firm fleshed boneless and skinless white fish fillets such as cod, blue hake, or haddock
â– 2 cups of freshly made medium fine breadcrumbs. This is roughly equivalent to 6 slices of bread.
â– 3 medium stalks of celery, finely diced
â– 1 bunch scallions, thinly sliced then chopped again until finely minced
â– 1/4 cup fresh parsley, chopped
â– 3 large eggs
â– 1 Tablespoon dried basil
■1 ½ teaspoons Old Bay Seasoning or other seafood seasoning blend
â– salt and pepper to taste
â– neutral oil, such as canola, for pan-frying
Line up your fish fillets on a clean cutting board. And don’t walk away from the cutting board to answer the phone or people (and by people I mean my children) are bound to mess with your ingredients. See what I mean?
“Ground control to Major Tom…”
Remove the Lego David Bowie from your cutting board and roughly cut the fish fillets into two-inch chunks.
Place the pieces into the work bowl of a food processor fitted with a blade. You are going to puree your fish. I’m aware that sounds revolting, but keep on keeping on, please. The end result is more worth it than I can possibly express. Pulse several times until the fish is broken down into a puree that still contains some pieces. No pieces should be larger than pebble-size. It should look like this. It only gets better from here!
Add the processed fish and the remaining ingredients to a large bowl and mix until uniform.
Place a 12-inch nonstick skillet over medium-high heat and add a thin coating of oil to the pan; a tablespoon should be sufficient. Swirl the oil to coat the pan.
Don’t pre-form all your fish cakes, because the patties tend to fall apart if left to rest on a plate It’s best just to form right before adding them to the pan. To do this most easily, rapidly form ½-cup of the fish mixture into a thin patty. Don’t squash them mercilessly! That light end texture relies on a gentle hand.
Quickly and carefully place the patty into the oiled pan.
Using a 12-inch pan should allow you to cook four patties at a time. Once all four patties are in the pan, raise the heat to high and cook for five minutes. After five minutes, use a wide spatula and an additional rubber spatula, if needed, to flip the patties one at a time. Take care to control how your flip them so you’re not splattered with any hot oil in the pan. The first side should be a beautiful brown when they’re turned. This first side looks like perfection.
Fry the second side for five minutes and transfer the fish cakes to a plate lined with a paper towel. Repeat with the remaining fish mixture, adding a little oil to the pan as necessary.
Serve immediately, either plain or with tartar sauce. They definitely have enough flavor to be served alone…
If you serve with tartar sauce, make it a good one. These New England Style Fish Cakes deserve the best!
For my money, this tartar sauce recipe is the best you can possibly make. It is the massively down-sized recipe that The Evil Genius learned to make when he worked at a very popular South Florida restaurant. He recalls making multiple 25-gallon batches for daily lunch and dinner services. We’re talking about one seriously road-tested and approved tartar sauce recipe.
This addictive tartar sauce is much more flavor-packed than most alternatives. Oh yes, put it on fish, but don’t stop there. It’s an explosive change to the usual mayonnaise on a hamburger. French fries take on a whole new dimension when dipped into Tart-er Tartar Sauce. Once you’ve tried it, you’ll plan meals around it!
Tart-er Tartar Sauce
Ingredients:
â– 1 cup Greek yogurt
■¼ cup mayonnaise
■¼ cup minced scallions
â– 2 Tablespoons minced cabbage
â– 1 Tablespoon minced green pepper
â– 1 Tablespoon lemon juice
â– 2 teaspoons dill pickle relish
■½ teaspoon dried dill weed
■¼ teaspoon celery seed
Stir all ingredients together in a bowl, cover tightly and refrigerate for at least an hour before serving.