
You’ll find masses of fish cake recipes floating around. but there are desirable fish cakes and then there are outstanding fish cakes! The trick is to keep the potato chunky and the fish in big flakes in place of letting it all become a mush. meanwhile, including garlic, chilli, inexperienced onion and thyme to the mixture maintains those complete of flavour!
And if you love baked recipes than you must try my recipe of Baked chicken nuggets they are super easy & tasty!
Fish Cakes
Fish cakes make a clean change from the usual pan-seared strategies that I usually default to when it comes to fish recipes.
It’s also an amazing way to make much less fish pass in addition because the fish is blended with a few sort of padding starch – potato in this situation. 500g / 1lb fish utilized in those fish patties will quite simply feed four adults, if now not 5, in comparison to a popular serving size for a piece of fish is 180g / 6oz consistent with individual.
Plus, allow’s simply country the obvious: something crumbed and pan fried till crunchy and golden is continually a winner, proper? mainly when the below that crunchy outdoors is buttery, slightly chunky mashed potato and juicy chunks of fish!

Ingredients for Fish Cakes
Here’s what you need:.
1. The Fish
Butter, salt and pepper – For pan frying. Nothing more needed because we’re mixing flavours right into the fish cakes, see below!
Best Fish for These Fish Cakes
Any company white fish fillets suitable for pan frying will paintings here. Even salmon will paintings high-quality! right here’s are guidelines for not unusual fish in my primary readership countries that is good for those fish cakes:
Australia: Trevalla/Blue eye cod, Hapuka, Barramundi, Jewfish/Mulloway, Flathead, Ling, Ocean Perch, Salmon, Snapper (big 1.2kg/2.5lb+), Ocean trout (no longer river trout).
US: Tilapia, Cod, Alaskan pollock, Catfish.
uk: Cod, Pollack, Hake, Sea Bass, Haddock, Salmon.
Canned tuna and salmon will even paintings right here. keep them in fine large chunks. also, there’s no want to cook them.
Fish to Avoid
- Fish that dries out easily – this includes king fish, tuna, sword fish, mahi mahi.
- Oily fish that also tends to have quite a “fish” flavour, as sardines, mackerel and river trout.
- Fish that’s too small or delicate for this recipe. This includes: Bream, Whiting, John Dory, Orange roughy (deep sea perch), Flounder, Sole, Turbot, Halibut, Monkfish / Stargazer (well, it works, but it’s a premium fish so I wouldn’t waste it on fish cakes! This Monkfish recipe is more worthy!)
2. Ingredients for the Fish Cakes
- Potato – that is used to bind and fill out the fish desserts. Any starchy or all-rounder potatoes will work first-class here. It’s better to keep away from waxy potatoes if you may but to be honest, even waxy potatoes will paintings good enough.
- Garlic, chilli, inexperienced onion, parsley and thyme – these are the flavourings for the fish cakes. this could sound modest on the flavour scale, but when you sauté it in the leftover butter after pan-searing the fish, all that bubbly goodness receives mashed with the potato and excellent things take place certainly!
- Egg, flour and panko breadcrumbs – that is for that golden crunchy coating you’ve been eyeing on the fish desserts!
How to make (really good!) Fish Cakes
You’ll find recipes online that are simpler with fewer steps. But I promise the (small!) extra effort is worth it – and I explain why!
1. Fish Cake Mixture
Bake potatoes for 75 mins until they provide no resistance while pierced with a knife. Baking entire potatoes works better than boiling cubes of peeled potato due to the fact they stay dry and the potato flavour isn’t diluted by the water.
Scoop out potato flesh in a bowl.
- Pan-sear large cubes of fish in butter, then do away with from the pan.
- Sauté garlic – in the same pan and the use of the leftover butter, sauté the garlic, chilli, green onion and thyme until the garlic is golden.
Pour this excellent, flavour-loaded buttery mixture into the potatoes. this is a key step for flavour in the fish patties because the butter has all of the tasty flavour from pan-frying the fish. - Roughly mash potato – add the parsley, a few salt and pepper then more or less mash. Emphasis right here at the word kind of. We don’t want very smooth mashed potato right here due to the fact then the inner of the fish cake becomes quite soft and infant-food-like. We need a few lumps for texture which creates a pleasant comparison to the soft flakes of fish.
- Add fish – add the fish, together with any juices pooled in the bowl / tray.
gently stir the fish in, taking care now not to interrupt up the delicate fish flakes an excessive amount of. We want some great large flakes of fish in our fish desserts, now not just an unrecognisable paste of potato and disintegrated fish!
2. Forming Fish Cakes, Crumbing and Cooking
- Scoop out mixture – Use a 1/4 cup measure to scoop out that much fish cake mixture (about 60g) and pack it in firmly into the cup.
- Form patties – Turn the mixture out onto your hand then form patties. (Tip: If you turn the mixture out into your hand it will mostly hold its shape which makes it very easy to shape into patties).
- Crumbing, dust with flour – To coat the fish cakes in panko breadcrumbs, start by coating in flour. Roll to coat both sides and don’t forget the edges. Nobody wants fish cakes with naked edges – we need golden crumbs all over!!
- Egg – Next, dip the fish cake into the beaten eggs and let the excess drip off.
- Panko breadcrumbs – And finally, place it in a bowl of panko breadcrumbs. Spoon some breadcrumbs over then use your hands to pat it on to adhere as best you can. Pick the fish cake up and let the excess breadcrumbs fall off.Repeat with remaining fish cakes. Now we’re ready to cook them!
- Pan fry – Firstly, pan fry until golden on both sides.Making the edges golden – If you’re pedantic like me, stand the fish cakes on edge and make the sides golden too, rolling the cakes slowly in the oil to give it colour all the way around. This is purely for visual purposes because the oil splashing as the flat sides cook and subsequent baking step do make the edges crunchy. But without specifically pan-frying the sides, they won’t go golden.
- Remove once the fish cakes are golden on each side. It only takes around 1 1/2 minutes. Transfer them to a paper towel-lined tray to absorb excess oil, then continue cooking the remaining fish cakes.At this stage, the fish patties won’t be that warm inside, so we’re going to finish them off in the oven. This method of cooking is also handy because you can serve a whole batch of piping hot fish cakes at once.
- Bake for just 10 minutes at 200°C / 390°F (180°C fan) to make the middle of the fish cakes hot and also to reheat the first batch you cooked to piping hot again!
Sauce for Fish Cakes
You’ll find those fish cakes are moist and flavourful enough that you’ll be satisfied to eat them instantly off the tray, no dipping sauce required.
but, as regular readers realize, I’m a sauce gal. Tartare sauce is conventional and my sauce of preference, though any seafood sauce may be extraordinary along with Marie Rose, Seafood Sauce and our own family Seafood Dipping Sauce. discover all these sauces right here.
however if you’re scrambling, even simply simple mayonnaise will paintings a treat (Kewpie is my preferred, observed through whole egg manufacturers like Hellmans), else sour cream or yogurt.