We will have salmon fish cakes and I'm going to show you how to make them at home. They are not difficult and they’re very quick. So we’re going to take some tins of pink salmon, two tins of pink salmon. My son loves this recipe and in fact it’s a recipe that you can use for everybody, not just for the children. You can use it for the adults as well. Children should be getting good sources of salmon and tuna and cod and again the variety is important, excellent source of protein, excellent source of iodine. I actually particularly love this recipe because it doesn’t use any mashed potato, which most of salmon fish cake recipes do which means you can serve them with mashed potatoes or with chips which kids love.
So you’ve got your 2 tins of pink salmon, these are also really nice served hot or cold so can prepare them in advance and then you can freeze them. I’ll show you how to freeze them individually and then just defrost them and either reheat them to have them warm or you can have them cold. So we’ve got 2 tins of pink salmon, we’re going to take a raw egg which you just want to beat lightly with a fork. So you’ve got your egg, we’re going to use some dried onion which gives a nice flavor because we’re not adding any salt or pepper. So you want roughly 3 tablespoons of dried onions. It have to be exact as you can see.
And we’re going to take some matzo meal but if you haven’t got some matzo meal you can also use bread crumbs, it does the same thing. Again, you’re going to use 3 tablespoons, we’re going to add some tomato ketchup. I have to say with a tomato ketchup this is a bit of a treat because it’s not something I normally use when I'm cooking. There are loads of additives, its got lots of sugar, it taste great, kids love it so I use it in this recipe but its not on the table all the time but it does actually give a really nice taste to the recipe. So roughly 2 tablespoons of tomato ketchup then you want to add about 2 tablespoons of fresh parsley, finely shopped just to give it a bit of a kick. I don’t think children are any different from adults. I think that food should be just as tasty even if you’re a kid, it shouldn’t be bland. So I try always to use lots of fresh herbs whenever possible; a. Because I got few in these and b. because it taste nice, there’s no reason for it to be bland. So that’s roughly 2 tablespoons of parsley. I’ll probably add a little bit more actually. I'm not being very scientific with my measurements here because it’s not going to make any difference, its going to make it taste good anyway.
So you just want to chop your parsley up quite fine, add that together. I bet that a bit more than 2 tablespoons but that’s fine. And then we’re going to add, this is a little secret that my mother gave me everyone else wants to have what she puts to her fish cake so she never shares the ingredients but actually today I'm afraid one of you are going to learn it. She puts as tsp of coaster sugar which again that sugar gives it a little, little kick and makes it absolutely delicious and then you want to add your raw egg. You can start mixing it with a spoon.
You might want to revert to your fingers by the end of it but you want the mixture to be of a consistency where you can form it into balls with your hands, little patties. So just make sure its really mixed well with the eggs in if you’ve got time and that’s not something we have a lot of and we’ve got children running around; just set the mixture aside in the fridge for half an hour because it allows a chance to take hold and set. It makes it easier for you to make the salmon fish cakes to from into patties. I'm going to use my fingers at this stage. And just to make sure it’s really mixed in well, so just fold it over and that should be fine.
You can test the mixture just before you put them in the fridge, just test it to see if you think it’s going to stick together enough and they’re not going to fall apart when you fry them. That looks like once it set, its going to be fine. You can either go straight ahead into frying and you’re going to fry them for about 3 minutes each side, we’ll come on to that or you can just set it aside. So I'm going to put that in the fridge now, and set it aside for half an hour.
So our salmon fish cakes have been in the fridge for half an hour, the mixture has now set, it’s going to be easier to make into balls. Although, to be honest if you haven’t put it into the fridge you’re still going to be able to make it into balls anyway. So before we start, we are going to line just anything you’ve got, a plate or baking tray or any tray, get sone clean film just to put the fish cakes on once you’ve prepared them.
And then you’re going to make about 4 salmon fish cakes do you just, you’re talking about child which we’re going to have children portions so you need to judge the size that you think your child would eat. You only need 2 fish cake per meal so, just flatten them in between your hands and you want to get them in even sizes. So just roll them into patties, quite flat because you’re going to fry them fro about 3 minutes each side. That’s one, do the same again. It’s not too sticky so it doesn’t stick that much to your fingers.
The thing is, try to get them all in the same size. In fact, we’re going to have slightly more here, you want to stick them together nicely and don’t forget as I've said there’s no potato in them so they’re great served with mashed potato, sweet mashed potato even is quite nice, makes a change. My son loves these. Now you’ve got 4, I want to try that in the same size so that you don’t suddenly end up with all the tiny little bit left that you can’t make a decent sized boy that would be the end. So we have 4 salmon fish cakes ready to be fried. You could always make them up in the morning and then fry them later, just keep them in the fridge.
I'm just going to wash my hands. I'm all ready to fry, just before we do that, line another tray with just some kitchen towel because once you fried them you’re going to just put them in the kitchen towel to get rid of the grease and take some vegetable oil. Make sure our heat is up and leave the oil to be quite hot here because otherwise they’re just going to soggy sitting in oil. So you need quite a lot of oil then you’re going to put 5 fish cakes in. you’re only going to fry them for about 3-4 minutes each side until they’re golden brown. So you can see the oil is getting quite hot there, and we’re going to place our salmon fish cakes straight in. spread them out a little bit because you wont be able to turn them over easily. I'm just going to leave those now, you can see its hot enough, they are starting to bubble and fry. And we’re just going to let those bubble away for about 4 minutes. You might want to just flatten them down a little bit and then they should go a nice golden brown. You might wonder why I haven’t actually coated them in any bread crumbs or in any matzo meal because they’ve got matzo meal in them. They don’t actually need it.
You’ll see that once they’ve been frying for about 3, 4 minutes they going to go a nice golden brown anyway. These look like they are ready to be turned over. You want to be quite gentle here and not to break them, that’s why I tend to use two pieces of equipment to help me. I've done it before in the past and they just collapsed every time. We’re just going to flip those over and you see without bread crumbs they still got a nice golden brown. Then, we’re going to leave those probably for another 2, 3 minutes and then they’re going to ready, just a little look underneath. Turn off the heat and then you just want to put them straight unto some kitchen towel. The second side took less time because the oil is really good and really hot. These have got a gorgeous golden brown and then we’re ready to either eat now or you can freeze them, let them cool and freeze them.
Salmon fish cakes, it’s good to say that they are quick and easy to make and they’re also able to be frozen so mom can pop them out on a night that she hasn’t got time to cook, serving them with vegetables and maybe some rice or some potatoes. And if you are freezing them, you would just drain them like these to get the oil off and then put them on another tray just the same as this on some clean film with a layer of foil over the top and just freeze them flat like and then when they’re frozen, you can just put them in a bag altogether and take them as you need them.
So we’re just patting down to get the oil off, top and bottom. We don’t want them to be greasy and then we’re going to put them on a plate and serve them up. And then you have a lovely salmon fish cake.
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