BN Cuisine with Chef Fregz: The Fish Cake

Salut! First off, a big thank you to Dunni for that post last week. Wow na to lick my screen remain.

I saw the comments in my Jerk chicken post and there are a few things I think I need to clarify.
1. Keeping the chicken for up to a month is just showing you how long in advance you can make it. Nobody expects you to wait that long. I am not a warlock now!

2. “The spices are expensive” That’s not true. These spices are 220naira for about 300g. Buy cheap rum for about N600, coconut milk can be as cheap as 180 to 220 Naira. The big supermarkets would retail for slightly more. Check my post on sourcing produce{here} to see where I shop and get best prices!

Alright moving on swiftly, I present to you what I think is a no-brainer and a classic with a twist; Fish Cakes!

Fish cakes are an English classic which are perfect at anytime of the day, week or year! Traditionally served with a nice tartar sauce with capers and a small salad. However, I wanted to go in a Thai direction here, so I decided to do half of a classic English recipe with some Thai influences – Thai influences being the coconut milk instead of whole milk and coriander in the dip.

I decided to mix up the breading here by adding oats instead of so much flour and also so I could claim there was something “healthy” about it even after it had been shallow fried in duck fat and olive oil. Deep frying works here and if you have an air fryer this is a perfect way to use it.

Panko breadcrumbs are “Japanese” style breadcrumbs which are bigger than regular fine breadcrumbs. La Pointe and Goodies Supermarket stock Panko these days or you could plead with someone coming from Obodo to bring for you. Its quite expensive worldwide but nothing to break the bank like that. If you cant be bothered kindly use your breadcrumbs jeje

I must mention here that it is very important that you use floury potatoes (which are basically “imported” potatoes here in Nigeria). Yes, they are different types of potatoes. They have 2 major categories and about 4000 different varieties of actual type of potatoes. Still, potatoes are either floury or waxy in general. Floury potatoes are light and break up quite easily when cooked. Waxy potatoes have less starch and remain quite firm when cooked. Floury potatoes are best for making mash potatoes, gnocchi, roasting and roasting whole in the oven. Waxy ones are great for french fries and roasting as well.

“How will I know the difference?” Well, from the skin you can tell. The more “shiny” it is, the more likely it is waxy. For us here in Nigeria just ask if it’s imported. They are usually larger than the small ones we get here.

The Avocado Dip/Sauce here is very versatile. It would go very well with chicken and a smoked meat. Also perfect for a sandwich spread and of course tortilla chips and salsa!

What You Need

1 kilo Sole or any White Fish fillet with no bones
370g shrimps
350-400g Floury Potatoes
1 tablespoon pureed or crushed garlic
1 tablespoon butter
1 large brown onion finely chopped (if you have the purple type just use a light one)
Medium bunch spring onions finely sliced
1 small green pepper finely chopped
Seasoning cube like Knorr Classic
Salt
black pepper to taste

For the Breading
2 eggs beaten with a splash of water
1/2 cup flour
1 cup rolled oats
1 cup panko breadcrumbs

How To
Start by boiling the peeled and cubed potatoes in slightly salted water till soft. Drain and place back on the heat till you start to hear a sizzling sound signalling you the water has dried up totally. Turn the heat off and leave the potato in the pot to continue to dry up a bit more.

While the potatoes are boiling in another saucepan, poach the fish fillets and shrimp in the coconut milk, garlic, fish seasoning, celery stalk, peppercorns and sprig of thyme.

Now, please take note you need to poach and not boil the fish. To ‘poach’ in this sense means to bring it to boil, then turn it down to a less than simmering heat so the fish cooks very gently. Rapid boiling would “scatter” the fish too much as it’s pretty delicate. Poach for 5 minutes and allow to cool.

After cooling break up the fish into sizable chunks. Roughly chop the shrimps and reserve the poaching liquid.

Quickly fry the onions in the butter with a splash of olive oil so the butter would not burn. cool down and mix with the potato.

In a bowl, break the potatoes with a fork, sliced spring onions, season with black pepper and rock salt and mix through. Add a splash of the poaching liquid then the fish and shrimps add the green pepper at this point with the egg.

To make the cakes finally

Get a small bowl of water to dampen the palm of your hands from time to time. Arrange the flour, oats and Panko mixture and the beaten eggs in trays in front of you.

Mix the potato fish shrimp mixture with your hand and start rolling into little balls and pat down carefully to form a small patty dampening your hand from time to time. Dip the patty into the egg, then into the flour with your other hand, and repeat twice. Double dredging never fails!

When you are done making the cakes, place them lined on a tray that has been lightly floured or lined with greaseproof paper and place in the fridge to firm up for about 20 minutes to an hour. At this point you even freeze and cook the next day after it’s thawed.

Like I said earlier on, you can deep or shallow fry. I went for a shallow fry with duck fat and olive oil, please use any good vegetable oil you have.

I used about 1 cup of fat and when it got really hot I placed about 4 cakes at a time and basted the cakes with the blistering fat. There was a clove of crushed garlic in the pan for extra flavour. Allow the cakes to cook for about 1 minute on each side, or till golden brown.

When all is cooked place on a oven proof plate or tray and place in a warm oven. while you make the dipping sauce.

Place the avocado, coriander, lemon juice, green chillies, olive oil, water, seasoning and mayonnaise in a bowl and blitz down with your hand blender or use a regular blender if you do not have the hand version.

…and voila you’re done!

Place on a nice plate and gather your haters to come and feast on what the Lord is doing in your life and share some nice Riesling and toast to God’s mercies while you are are it.

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Chef Fregz loves to cook! He is a graduate of Le Cordon Bleu Paris Culinary Arts School in France and hosts monthly “Chef Fregz Specials” where he whips up a yummy menu with a different theme each time then everyone enjoys a taste. He also caters special events and private dinners. To find out more visit www.cheffregz.com. Chef Fregz provides premium private catering services. For bookings and orders email [email protected] – @Chef_Fregz on Instagram and Twitter. You can check out the Chef Fregz Page on Facebook as well.