Cooking from cookbooks: Double haddock fishcakes

One of the reasons I started this blog was so that it would give me an opportunity (or an excuse) to start using my cookbooks more often. So one of my goals (goal 153) involves trying out a new recipe each week from a cookbook I own. My choice this week was a simple fishcake recipe from Nigella Lawson’s ‘Feast’. I halved the recipe, since Nigella’s quantities would normally serve 8-10 people; even with half quantities, this was still quite a big meal for just two of us.

Double Haddock Fischcakes (adapted from Nigella Lawson’s ‘Feast’)

Ingredients:

• about 750 gr. floury potatoes
• 500 gr. skinless haddock fillet
• about 350-370 gr. smoked haddock fillet (skinned if possible)
• 250 ml milk
• some parsley stalks
• some very finely chopped parsley (I used half of one of those supermarket little packets of parsley)
• 1 hard boiled egg
• 2 tablespoons English mustard
• zest of a lemon
• a bit of lemon juice (about 1/2 tablespoon)
• half a packet (100 gr.) Ritz crackers

Method:

• Peel & roughly chop the potatoes, boil them in salted water until tender & then mash them in a bowl
• Put the fish (with the smoked fish underneath) in a large pan with the milk, parsley stalks & some pepper
• Bring the pan to a simmer & cook for about 5-8 mins, turning if necessary
• Take the fish out of the pan, drain the liquid, flake the fish into a bowl & add the chopped parsley
• Finely chop the hard-boiled egg & add that with the mustard, lemon zest & lemon juice
• Turn the flaked fish mixture into the slightly cooled mashed potato & mix thoroughly
• Add salt & pepper as needed
• Crush the Ritz crackers, by putting them in a freezer bag, bashing & rolling them (e.g. with a rolling pin) until they’re crumbs. Put these crumbs into the roasting pan you’ll be using, preferably a large one because these quantities make quite a lot of fishcakes
• Shape the mixture into fishcakes; choose their size depending on what you want, but I would say make them slightly large
• After you’ve shaped each one, press it on both sides into the Ritz crumbs, trying to make sure the crumbs have ’stuck’ all around. This step is not as easy as it sounds, because the Ritz crumbs frustratingly keep falling away, so try to make sure they’re well coated
• Cook them in a preheated oven at 200 degrees celcius for about 20 minutes or so

These are delicious; we ate them with gherkins & some sauce tartare, & added lemon juice. They were very filling, too.

If you’re interested in trying different fishcake recipes, here are some choices from other blogs:

• Crab cakes with lemon glazed sweet-potatoes, from Kim at A Yankee in a southern kitchen
• Salmon patties with dandelion greens from Jeanette at Everybody likes sandwiches
• Salmon croquettes from Ashwini at Food for thought
• Cod-potato fritters, from Jennifer at the Domestic Goddess
• Thai fishcakes from Liz at Gastronomy Domine