Thai Fishcakes

Author: JayPenfold

Category: Fish recipes

Created on Wednesday, 28 April 2010 18:16

Written by Jay 'Yakfisher' Penfold

Fishcakes have been a favourite of mine for a long time. I believe the measure of a Thai eatery is it's fishcakes. Are they too spicy, rubbery or bland? Sadly many are never quite right.

Here is a foolproof recipe to make light and tasty fishcakes. The secret to the recipe is in the method. Fresh fish of course is crucial, but the technique to put them together is essential.

Ingredients:

1 x kg fresh fish fillet*
2 x eggs at room temperature
1 x tablespoon green curry paste**, (Mae Ploy brand is my preferred brand)
2 x cups plain white breadcrumbs
1 x bunch coriander, roots and stems only
1 x Kaffir lime leaf (optional)

splash fish sauce to season

Method:

Wash and trim the coriander roots, chop roughly. Coarsely chop 2/3rds of the fish and place in a mixing bowl. Chop the remainder into fine dice of about 5mm. Slice lime leave is using into very vine strips. Combine curry paste, coriander, Kaffir lime and coarsely chopped fish. Put through the food processor in two batches, adding an egg to each batch. Blend to a coarse texture. When done, return to the mixing bowl and combine with the fish dice and the breadcrumbs. Refrigerate for an hour or two to let the flavours amalgamate. With wet hands, roll balls of fishcake mixture of even size then flatten and pan fry both sides in vegetable oil till golden brown. Serve with dipping sauce like soy and lime juice or Nam Jim. The trick of the trade here is not to work the ingredients too much. Don't leave the mix in the blender for twenty minutes. We don't want a fine paste here. Adding the diced fish at the end ensures we have a nice texture and that the fishcakes stay nice and moist too.

*Choose something with flavour and a little oil. For this recipe I used Giant Trevally, Mullet and Flathead I had caught.

**You could always make your own from scratch, but after a hard days' fishing then cleaning then cooking the catch, why not take the lazy way out. Still a great feed.