The Silver LiningVietnamese-style fish cakes – The Silver Spoon #7
So over the weekend my brothers decided to be all manly and stuff and went deep sea fishing. They were pretty successful, and amongst a few things managed to catch a shark! (That’s pretty manly.) As a result, I found myself with one and a half kilos of shark meat and a big question – what on earth do I do with one and a half kilos of shark?
I’m not a big cooker of fish to begin with since I always somehow manage to stuff it up, which generally results in a horrible dinner and a terrible sense of guilt for ruining a beautiful (and often expensive!) piece of fish. Dissatisfied bellies and sad faces all round.
I happened upon this Vietnamese fish cake recipe by Luke Nguyen on the SBS Food Safari site (how badly do I want the Food Safari lady’s job!) and after a few modifications came up with these lovely little morsels! I think due to the nature of shark meat the fish cakes came out quite firm and “meaty”, but I think it actually worked well and tasted great. I enjoyed mine dipped in sweet chilli sauce and washed them down with a cold glass of home-brewed iced jasmine tea. I still have at least thirty of these fishy bites left (I used all the shark in one go) and I think I’ll try them next on a bed of rice noodles with lettuce leaves, mint, bean sprouts and shredded carrot…
Ingredients:
- 500g fish fillets, cubed (the original recipe calls for Spanish mackerel)
- 1 tablespoon fish sauce
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 1/4 teaspoon sesame oil
- 1 garlic clove, finely diced
- 4 shallots, diced
- Vegetable oil for deep frying
- Sweet chilli sauce for serving
How to:
- Place all ingredients (except vegetable oil and sweet chilli sauce) in a food processor and process until all ingredients are incorporated into a paste. If you’re more dedicated than me, you can use a mortar and pestle rather than a food processor and pound the fix mixture until it gets a more elastic consistency.
- Make patties out of the mixture, roughly 5cm in diameter and 2cm thick. Oil your hands so the fish doesn’t stick to you.
- Heat the oil in a wok or other large non-stick pan over medium heat. Fry the fish cakes in batches and fry for 3-4 minutes each side until golden.
- And that’s it! Serve with sweet chilli sauce for dipping.
P.S. Check out the giant chilli from my garden! Its “parent” plant had normal-sized chillis so who knows why this one has mutated!
The Silver Lining 
Was it that Great White so in the news at the moment? Now THAT would be super-manly!!
Hi Anna! It most certainly would’ve been manly, but then I would’ve been stuck trying to figure out what to do with one and a half TONNES of shark instead!
Sarah 🙂
You have home brewed jasmine tea?? Woman…what can you NOT do? And when do I get another invite to your house? There seems to be so many changes that its all brand new old! 🙂
Yes indeed – would love to catch up soon! Xoxo