Sunday's fish cakes

Still on a mission to use up an excess of smoked fish and with some leftover mashed potato from Saturday's dinner I decided to make some fish cakes. I don't really know much about making fish cakes but I do know quite a bit about eating them so I would rely on this for their creation.

We had one leek lingering in the fridge and I thought that this would go nicely, so I started off by chopping this up and frying it. I wasn't really sure about the quantities but had about one (hungry) person's worth of potato left and didn't want to overload this with too many other ingredients for fear of it all falling apart. I stirred the now fried leeks into the potato and it still looked safe.

I had been quite organised with the fish and had got it out earlier to defrost – using my favourite method of immersing it in a washing up bowl of warm water. (The fish was still in it's freezer packaging). I wanted to pre-cook this too and opted for the easiest option modern technology provides: the microwave. Now, I know some people “don't believe” in microwaves (as if they were some sort of faith related issue), but I for one am a big fan. There are a few features of our microwave of which I am a particular fan, one of these is the auto-fish-cook feature. You just enter how much the fish weighs and it automatically triggers the time and power for perfectly cooked fish. So after 3 minutes and 20 seconds my smoked fish was done. I removed it from the skin, flaked it and mixed it through the potato and leek. The proportions still looked safe, but I was concerned about the overall binding so, once there'd been enough time for the fish to cool down, I stirred through a beaten egg.

 

The transformation from random mush to proper the fish cakes was quite satisfying. I took about a fistful of mixture rolled it around in my (clean) hands and then patted it out into a fish cake shape whilst covering in breadcrumbs – another use for the mammoth quantity we have in the freezer. Thus far what I had created was looking remarkably fish cake like.

One of the things that worries me is raw egg. All the other ingredients in the fish cakes were pre-cooked but I wasn't sure how I should proceed to ensure that the egg was fully cooked through. After much deliberation I decided that the best course of action would be to shallow fry them for a few minutes to seal and make the breadcrumbs go brown and crispy, and then cook in the oven for 10 minutes or so which I estimated would be enough time for the egg to cook and for everything to heat up nicely. I was a bit nervous about the frying pan phase in case the fish cakes fell apart during manipulation, but it was ok.

While the fish cakes were in the oven I prepared some carrots to go with them. I did them in a way that should usually be reserved for special occasions. I cut the carrots into thin strips and then cooked them in a pan with equal volumes of butter (probably about 40g but I didn't weigh it) and water. I also added a tablespoon of ginger syrup. By the time the carrots are soft you're just left with a lovely bit of buttery sauce. And I microwaved some peas as well.

There were six fish cakes altogether, which between two of us might have been excessive but we were hungry (well I was anyway, I had had a busy day of doing not very much). I had my fish cakes with tomato ketchup (another of my five a day) and Matt had his with garlic mayonnaise. They were really yummy and we were both pleased to have three to enjoy. Matt went as far as to describe them as “restaurant quality – much better than some fish cakes that I've eaten in some restaurants, so better than some restaurant's quality”. The carrots weren't bad either (and the peas were peas).