Despite their rather unimaginative yet perfectly succinct name, these ‘Quick Asian Fishcakes’ are brought to you by the original Naked Chef, Jamie Oliver. His ‘Quick & Easy Meals’ series offers simple but insanely good recipes that usually use five or less ingredients. In my limited cooking experience, the simple recipes are typically the best, as they tend to make the most of their ingredients, allowing the natural flavors to shine and work together in magical alchemy.
As someone who is a big fan of all sorts of cakes – chocolate, almond, crab, pound and otherwise – I’ve been largely reticent to try my hand at making a fishcake. I just assumed it would fall apart like most of most kitchen endeavors of late. (Stay tuned for a massive Jello fail tale right on the heels of this mixed rainbow success.)
As for these fishcakes, Mr. Oliver lays out a simple process with even simpler ingredients. A single stalk of lemon grass is “whacked†on the counter, the outer tough layers removed, then it is chopped into fine bits. A thick inch of ginger is chopped finely as well, as is a half cup of fresh cilantro. A piece of skinless salmon is placed on top of the mixed ingredients, half of which is chopped into half-inch cubes, the other half is basically pulverized with enough cuts of the knife to turn it into a mushy mash. Add some salt and pepper then mix all the salmon together and divide into however many fishcakes you want to make. (I opted for two larger ones.) I was skeptical about the lack of a binding agent, but the mashed half of the salmon acts as such, and the end result is proof of this. I used sesame oil to keep things true to the Asian flavors, and fried each about four minutes per side. They stayed intact, to my happy surprise, but even better was the flavor. Topped with some sweet red chili sauce, this is going to be my new staple. If you can chop, you can do this.
