Salmon Cakes!

Happy Wednesday everyone! Sorry I’m getting this week’s post to you a little late, but it’s been sort of a crazy week already. I’ve worked extra at my regular job, and I have been working a novel that is consuming my thoughts. Pretty sure I’ve never wanted to tell a story so badly. So, you might randomly hear about my other writing sometimes, especially when November rolls around and NaNoWriMo begins.

Anyway. Something I’m really excited about in the food entertainment world this week is that Alton Brown is back with more GOOD EATS! I watched the first two episodes of Good Eats: The Return on Sunday night and they were everything I could have asked for. Also, he’s just gotten more handsome as the years pass, so there’s that, haha. But seriously, I love the whole food science thing, and it’s so cool when chefs cook yummy food AND can tell us why something cooks the way it does.

So that’s the cool stuff this week. How’s everyone else? Oh yeah, I promised you a recipe. Right. Always gotta have one of those unless I specify this isn’t a recipe post. Well, tonight I’m sharing with you a recipe for fish cakes. Salmon cakes, to be exact. I’ve made fish cakes multiple times over the years, utilizing different canned salmon and tuna, but they always felt a little…not perfect. I didn’t know why, until I came across this recipe from Natasha’s Kitchen, another cooking blog with waaaaay more cred than me. <—-That’s supposed to be funny, you can laugh. She’s been around for awhile. It’s all good.

The secret? To use freshly baked fish! I do not know why this never occurred to me, but I did it the other night when I wanted salmon but just thought regular ol’ baked and served over veggies was gonna be too boring for a Monday night. I adapted the recipe I found and served these with a spinach soup, which was also awesome and I will likely share in a future post.

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Fish Cakes using freshly baked salmon

Ingredients:

1 lb fresh salmon filet
Garlic powder
pink salt
black pepper
Olive oil
1 medium yellow onion, finely diced
1/2 red bell pepper, finely diced
3 tbsp butter, divided
1 cup almond flour or coconut flour or a mix of the two*
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
3 tbsp mayo
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1/4 cup fresh parsley, minced

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and place salmon skin-side down. Brush with olive oil and season with garlic powder, salt, and pepper. Bake uncovered for 10-15 minutes. Take out, cover with aluminum foil, and let rest for 10 minutes. (In this time, if you have not already, prepare the onion and pepper.) Once filet has rested for 10 minutes, flake with forks, make sure there aren’t any bones, and let cool to room temperature.

In a medium skillet over medium heat, add 1 tbsp olive oil and 1 tbsp butter. Melt together, then add onion and bell pepper. Saute until onion is golden, which is about 7-9 minutes, then take from heat.

Using a large mixing bowl, combine salmon, sauteed veggies, 1 cup almond or coconut flour, eggs, mayo, Worchestershire sauce, and parsley. Add a few dashes of garlic powder, salt, and pepper, if you want. Mix up till fairly homogeneous. Once mixed well, form into patties. I got about 14 patties, 1 1/2 inch wide and 1/2 inch thick. (Think smallish cookies, I guess? I’m bad at this sizing thing.)

Heat 1 tbsp oil and 1 tbsp butter in skillet over medium heat. Once butter finishes sizzling, add salmon cakes and saute. (Depending on the size of your skillet, you might get them all in one pan, you might need to do half. I did all of them in my large cast iron skillet at once. If you only do half the cakes at a time, you’ll need to add more oil and butter for the second batch.) Saute 3 1/2-4 minutes per side, or until golden brown. Place fried cakes on a paper towel lined plate.

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These really were amazing. I’m surprised it only took one try to get them super delicious, because more often than not, when I work with flaked fish, I have problems. But I bet the difference here really was the freshly cooked salmon. This recipe could be made with canned salmon or leftover baked salmon, but I’m not sure if I want to ruin the magic I made here, haha.

*The original recipe calls for panko breadcrumbs, which I did not have on hand at the time. And because I know almond and coconut flour are both keto-friendly, that is what I chose.