Thai-spiced salmon and potato fish cakes

Fishcakes! Yeah!

You could think of this as a left-overs dish - a tasty alternative to throwing mash and fish remains in the bin. I actually bought the stuff, though, for the purpose of fish cakes. I got a whole Baltic salmon for around 50 zl (10 quid) and made a very amateurish attempt at filleting it which resulted in too much flesh being left around the skeleton. I got 6 fillets out of the fish plus the skeleton so I decided to divide the cost of the fish by 7 to arrive at a costing for this recipe: 7.15 zl

I served 2 fishcakes per person plus salad side and yoghurt dressing as a light lunch and I can recommend you do the same!

Cost per fishcake: 0.94 zl (19 UK pence, 30 US cents)
Cost per person per meal: with salad, this would cost around 3 zl per person (60 UK pence)

What we need:

- 4-5 potatoes (skinned, boiled and mashed)
- salt
- the skeleton of a filleted fish (e.g. salmon in this case)
- a handful of finely chopped spring onion
- 1/2 tsp ground black pepper
- 1/2 tsp turmeric
- 1/2 tsp cumin powder
- 1/2 tsp coriander powder
- 1/4 tsp red chilli powder
- 1 green chilli (finely chopped)
- 1 inch ginger (finely grated)
- the zest of 1/2 lemon
- a good splash of fish and/or soy sauce
- flour for dusting

Let's go!

1. Prep the potatoes and boil up from cold water with 1 tsp salt. Should take 10-15 minutes. Check by passing a knife through. Drain off the water as soon as the potatoes are cooked. Set aside.

2. Meanwhile, make a simple steamer with a pan and a little water in the bottom of it with a sieve perched on top. Place the fish skeleton on the sieve. Cover and bring the water to the boil. When boiling, turn down to low-medium heat and steam till all the salmon has changed colour to light pink (around 15 mins). When done, leave uncovered for at least 10 minutes to cool.

3. Prep the flavourings

4. Mash the spuds!

5. Look at this fish! You'll need to carefully pull off the flesh from the bones and keep aside.

6. Mix all the potatoes, salmon and flavourings together in a bowl. Get your hands stuck in there! While you're mixing, you'll be able to pick out any rogue fish bones.

7. Form into balls and flatten slightly in your hand. Dust with flour.

8. Shallow fry in vegetable oil (Ooops - I forgot to take a photo!). And that's it! Serve however you like.

Cost:

- Salmon: 7.15 zl
- Potatoes: 0.75 zl
- Flavourings: 1.50 zl

Total: 9.40 zl
Makes: 10 fish cakes
Per fishcake: 0.94 zl