What's For Dinner? - Salmon Fish Cakes with Green Bean Salad

Fish.

I love fish, I love it in a dish.  I love it in a pie, I love it in the sky.  I love it from a tin, I love it with my kin.  I love it when it's fresh, that makes it especially spesh.

I love fish.

Except when I don't.

I'd like to say that we eat our weekly recommended dose of fish, but the truth is we don't.  Our main source of fish would be tuna from a tin, sometimes I'll crave it and buy up big at the market and then I won't feel like it at all so it ends up in the freezer.  So, it's fair to say, sometimes I love it and can't get enough and sometimes I can't stomach even the thought of it.

I'd bought 1kg of salmon pieces at the market, end of day deal...I always love a good end of day market bargain!  I fully intended to make skewers for the BBQ with it but it didn't happen so it ended up in the freezer.

We do love a good fish cake in our family so I dragged it out the other week and made up some fresh salmon fish cakes.

You don't have to use fresh salmon, you could easily substitute 400g-500g tinned good salmon or tuna for the fresh fish.

Salmon Fish Cakes with Green Bean Salad - Serves 4-6

Ingredients

Fish Cakes

500g Salmon Pieces, diced

Mashed potatoes made with 3-4 potatoes...plan ahead and make extra mash earlier in the week

1 bunch spring onions, trimmed washed and finely sliced

1 egg

3 Tbs fresh dill, finely chopped or 1 Tbs dried

Ground salt and pepper to taste

Breadcrumbs (for these I used panko crumbs, sometimes I grate bread from the freezer, the ordinary dried kind from the box are fine too)

Yoghurt Sauce

3/4 cup Greek yoghurt

1/2 cup sour cream

4 Tbs chopped capers

2 Tbs chopped fresh dill

Juice of 1 lemon

Freshly ground pepper to taste

Green Bean Salad

500g Green Beans, trimmed

2-3 roasted red capsicums depending on size, feel free to use the ones in the jar...I use the always fresh fire roasted red peppers for this salad more often than not

100g toasted almonds

150g danish feta

Balsamic vinegar...or better still some of this stuff, it's ah-may-zing

Method

Fish Cakes

Mix together all the ingredients except the crumbs.

Shape into 6 equal patties.

Roll in crumbs and pop in the fridge to 'set' for about 1/2 hour while you make the bean salad and yoghurt sauce.

To make the yoghurt sauce you just mix all the ingredients together.  see below for the green bean salad.

Heat a small amount of olive oil, just enough so that they don't stick) in a frying pan and brown the fish cakes on each side before transferring to a 180C oven to finish cooking through (about 5-10 minutes depending on how fat you make them and how well browned they are).

As an alternative to the frying pan you can brush with olive oil and cook in the oven for about 15 minutes, flipping over about halfway through the cooking time to ensure both sides get crispy.

Serve with bean salad and a big dollop of the yoghurt sauce.

Green Bean Salad

Quickly blanche your beans in boiling water, you want them to be bright green and not soggy.  Put them straight into cold water after you have drained them.

Toast your almonds, I do this in my microwave one minute at a time, shaking the nuts in between zaps to rearrange them.  It usually takes about 3 x 1 minute for whole almonds.

Slice your skinned and de-seeded roasted capsicums into long strips

Put the beans and capsicum strips into a serving bowl or platter, crumble over the feta, drizzle on some balsamic mix and finish with the nuts.

Enjoy

Tatum xx

PS...please excuse my Dr Seuss moment at the start, I was feeling a little silly ;)