Chan's Personal Blog

Well, tonight's youth group, The Oasis, had a potluck dinner event, which gave me a chance to transfer some of my accumulated theoretical cooking knowledge from the Food Network (best channel in the world) to actual cooking. Tonight's secret ingredient is ... (dramatic pause) FISH CAKES! This is probably the first savoury entree dish that I've prepared for guests.

I developed the recipe fairly adhoc a few months ago because I had this strange hankering for fish cakes. One night, my parents said they weren't coming home for dinner, so I'd have to cook. I looked in the pantry and the fridge, and I had fairly minimal things to work with. In either case, I was still able to whip up a batch for fish cakes with a few ingredients. The recipe has been tweaked a bit since its initial conception. The recipe is now version 3.0. Anyways, here's the recipe (more of a reminder for me so I don't forget):

Recipe: Tuna Fish Cakes
Cooking Time: Took me 1 hour, 15 minutes, but I'm a noobie. The time can probably be improved.
Yield: 2 dozen fish cakes (good for party situations)

Ingredients:

• 3 cans of flaked tuna fish
• 1 stalk of celery
• 1 carrot
• 2 large mushrooms
• Breadcrumbs
• 2 tablespoons of miracle whip
• 1 egg
• Pepper
• Cooking oil

Directions:

1. This step can be done ahead of time: Open up the cans of tuna, and drain them thoroughly. This is important as too much moister in the cake mix will make it hard to shape the cakes, and keep them together. Take the tuna and put it in the fridge so it can harden somewhat, and dry a bit. (I did this step the night before, I'm not sure how long it really needs to be in the fridge for, but I got the results that I was looking for.)


2. This step can be done ahead of time as well: Finely cube celery, carrot, and mushrooms, and lightly cook them in a pan. Don't cook them through as they'll finish cooking at a later phase.


3. Combine lightly cooked vegetables, tuna, egg, miracle whip, and pepper in a mixing bowl. Hopefully the mixture isn't too wet, or else the next step's going to be a pain.


4. Take approximately a tablespoon of the mixture out, and shape it like a fish cake. Repeat step until you're out of mixture.


5. Take the bread crumbs and put it in a pan. Dip the fish cakes into the pan of bread crumbs such that they're lightly coated.


6. Preheat a pan with cooking oil over medium-high heat.


7. Pan fry the fish cakes. It should take about a minute and a half per side, or until golden brown. This will differ depending on the type of bread crumb you're using, and the type of oil.


8. Place the fish cakes on some paper towels so that the oil can drain from it.

Voila, you're done.

Conclusions:
Everyone seemed to like them. Who could possibly hate a delicious lightly fried golden brown treat? I served this with some homemade tartar sauce... ketchup would be great too. One thing that I could improve on is the presentation of the end product. I think if I used a circle cookie cutter as a mold, I could get more consistently shaped/sized fish cakes.

Tune in for the next battle in kitchen stadium

P.S. To the guy who skeptically asked if I actually made these, up yours!