Fish cakes & Crab cakes

The world has lots of fish cake recipes so why post another?

I’ve had good fishcakes and terrible ones (ditto with crab cakes). So for me what makes a bad fish cake.

1. Too solid and stodgy. I think a fish cake should be a delicate texture that allows the flakes of fish or lumps of crabmeat to shine through

2. Indistinguishable fish. It should be flakes and chunks of fish not a uniform paste. A solid blob of uniformity is a dumpling not a fish cake.

3. Too flavoured. The flavour of the fish/crab should be prominent.

4. Greasy. The purpose of frying is to seal and give a crunchy exterior. The inner workings should not be dripping with fat.

There are multiple ways to achieve this ideal but the following is a good guide. It is s great recipe for a lunch after grilling whole bone-in fish and works well with the meaty pickings left behind. The meat behind the head and the cheeks and the bits around the bones are especially good. just make sure there are no bones in there.

Recipe:

Ingredients

A bowl of left over cooked fish. Flaked grilled trout and white fish are ideal. I used tilapia and rainbow trout. Different sized flakes are good.

Cooked and crushed potato. Again ideal is some leftover boiled new potatoes which can be crushed not mashed. The crushing leaves some texture which adds to the lightness. As a guide about a quarter to a third volume potato to fish.

Eggs. Mix in 2-3 eggs as a binder. For each 2 cups of fish flakes use 1 egg.

Breadcrumbs. Panko breadcrumbs. Stir in a dessert spoon full for each 2 cups of fish flakes. A

Spices. Up to you. A teaspoon of mustard is good. curry powder is excellent although don’t overdo it. Chillies, chilli sauce, horseradish, tartare sauce…

Mix well with a fork and allow to stand for a half hour in the fridge to absorb and firm up.

Put extra panko on a plate and make a patty out of the mix. Don’t squeeze too hard, just enough to hold together. Coat in Panko and shallow fry in a light oil until golden on each side.

Serve as you wish but Sriracha, tartare sauce and chopped lettuce or watercress are my favourites.

(Do more than you think you will need. You will want more!)