Fish Cakes These fish cakes can be made with any fish cut-offs or left overs. A Thai classic.

Ingredients for 4

Method

Peel the potatoes and boil for 18 minutes or until done.

Poach the fish in the milk for 5 to 7 minutes. Flake the fish, fry the finely chopped onion in half the butter until translucent.

Use the milk from the fish and the other half of the butter to mash the potatoes. Add some salt and pepper.

Combine the fish, mashed potatoes, onion, chopped parsley and chopped capers, add salt and pepper.

Shape into cakes and put into the fridge for half an hour.

Take the cakes out of the fridge, roll in flour, dip into beaten egg and roll in breadcrumbs. Fry in butter or grill.

Serve with a sweet Chilli Sauce and a side salad.

Step-by-Step Instructions

	Start off by peeling the potatoes and boiling them. They should take about 18 minutes from the moment the water around the potatoes starts to boil.
	Whilst the potatoes are boiling, put your fish in a saucepan and pour the milk in. Gently simmer for about 8 minutes or until the fish gets firm to the touch.
	Peel the onion, and cut off the top. Leave the bottom bit on.
	Now cut the onion in half.
	Make incision into the onion as shown here. Don't cut all the way through, but leave a tiny bit of onion intact at the root.
	Now you can cut off thin slices, which will immediately turn into tiny little onion bits. This is the way chefs cut onions.
	Heat up half the butter in a frying pan and add the onion. Fry until translucent and take off the heat.
	When the fish is firm to the touch, take it out of the milk. Save the milk as we will use some for the mash later.
	Take the skin off the fish.
	Flake the fish with a fork (here I am also adding some prawns).
	Check if your potatoes are done by pushing a knife into the biggest one. If it doesn't meet any hard resistance toward the core of the potato, they are done. Pour off the water from the potatoes and put them aside.
	Add the other half of the butter, salt and pepper to the potatoes.
	Start mashing. When you get a fairly even consistency and the mash is too dry, add a little bit of the milk we saved from simmering the fish. Mash again. You don't want your mash to be liquid at all - we need a nice firm consistency!
	Chop up your capers.
	And chop up the parsley. Remove the stalks from the parsley.
	Now put all the ingredients for the fish cakes into a bowl ...
	... and gently mix together with a spoon. Don't forget to season with salt and pepper. Taste the mixture to check the seasoning - this is your last chance!
	Form patties out of the mixture. The quantities in this recipe should give you 2 patties per person.
	Put the fish cake patties in the fridge for at least 30 minutes. More is better as they get firmer. Take three plates and put the flour in the first, the beaten egg in the second, and the breadcrumbs in the third. Put them close together as seen here.
	Now it's time for frying the fish cakes. After they have rested in the fridge, take them out. Put your frying pan on the hob and put in the butter and olive oil stated above in the ingredients section for frying.
	Make sure the oil and butter don't get too hot. Take the first fish cake, and cover it with flour from the first plate.
	Then cover it with the beaten egg from the second plate ...
	... and finally in the breadcrumbs from the third plate. Then put it in the frying pan and proceed in the same way with all the other fish cakes.
	Gently fry all the fish cakes. Do not turn them until they have browned to your liking!
	After a couple of minutes, when the fish cakes have reached the right level of browning, gently turn them over. You will only turn over the fish cakes once - otherwise they will turn into mush :-)
	Serve with a sweet chilli sauce and some salad - or with whatever you like!