Fishcakes, revisited
There’s a fishcakes recipe in Nigel Slater’s Kitchen Diaries that I just can’t get enough of. It’s pretty much just salmon and dill, with – shock, horror – no potatoes. There’s an egg and a dollop of flour holding it all together, of which the egg turns out to be redundant. The fishcakes turn out light and delicate. You serve them with yoghurt dressing, and, if you’re me, hummus. Three or four small ones make a fantastic starter.It’s not very UK winter, however. And it’s certainly not apt to feed to Mr C, who gets a spot vomity at the prospect of oily fish. What to do?Haddock, of course, silly.
(and yes, this is just my other fishcake recipe with extra capers and no potato, but it made me kinda nervous about the binding)
Ingredients:
- Smoked haddock (undyed, ideally)
- Flour
- Flat leaf parsley
- Capers
- Greek yogurt
- Crushed green peppercorns
- Salt & pepper
Skin the haddock, and either really, really finely chop it, or blitz it in a processor. It wants to be pretty fine and well-minced, but not actually a puree. This is the part I didn't think would work, incidentally. In the salmon version, you don't have to chop quite so fine, as the oilyness seems to hold everything together.Chop the parsley and the capers, then stir them together with the fish and flour. Season. Amazingly, it should bind.Press the mixture into small patties. Don't worry if it seems a bit crumbly. It holds better if pressed together firmly, and forms a crispy exterior when cooked.
Fry off the fishcakes in a little (quite hot) olive oil until golden.Make a dressing: mix the peppercorns and yoghurt with some salt and a little black pepper.Serve with thin slices of gherkin.For the record, I didn't think this was going to work. The oil in the salmon seemed like it was doing a lot of the work, and I wasn't sure the flavours would come through. But yes, it binds, and the combination is excellent. You do need the gherkins, though. or something else with a bit of sourness and bite, to cut through it all.