Thai Fishcakes

A few weeks back Wil went on this crazy protein kick.  He'd found a menu plan online and instructed me to purchase everything required for the meals outlined. Then, typically, we ate about 40% of the meals on the list that week. He still hasn't tried the bran he requested but thankfully I think it's quite tasty.  One of the key features of this plan was a lot of fish. Filled with good stuff and pretty easy to prepare I'm always a fan of freshly cooked fish, but I still can't help thinking of cat food when I open some of the canned stuff.  Unluckily this plan involved a lot of canned fish.

Three weeks later and our pantry is still predictably filled with variations of canned fish. We have salmon, tuna, sardines, a whole mini ocean just waiting to be consumed. With the fear that without some creative thinking quick smart I'll find a rather disturbing looking (and smelling) ocean in a few months, I decided the best way to deal with this was to make use of it all quick and resolve to leave it in the supermarket-ocean from here on. 

With one large can of salmon in front of me Thai fish cakes seemed the obvious choice: their quick, easy, full of flavour and didn't require the purchase of any extra ingredients. All I needed to do was chop up some chillis and cilantro, some shallot and spring onion and I was ready to go. Nice and Easy. 

Then I through them on top of some speed pad thai, added some delicious mango habanero sauce (as we were all out of Sweet Thai Chilli) and dinner was done. 

Cans gone. People fed. Pantry saved. 

Thai Fish Cakes

1 can salmon, mashed up with a fork

1 thai chilli, sliced (or more if you like it spicy)

1 1/2 tbsp fish sauce

1 big handful coriander, chopped

3 tbsp cornflour

1 egg, lightly beaten

1 tbsp Penang Curry Paste

1 spring onion, sliced

Blend all the ingredients except the spring onion together in a food processor.  Stir in the spring onion and form into small patties. Allow to sit in the fridge for 30 minutes or so.

Heat a little peanut oil in a pan, and turn your oven on to a low heat.  Cook the fish cakes for 3-4 minutes each side until lightly browned. Transfer to the oven to finish baking while you cook the next batch.  Serve atop Bebe's Pad Thai*, with a nice cold Tiger. 

* I mixed things up a little by adding capsicum, carrot and sliced snowpeas to my padthai and cooking with vermicelli noodles instead of regular pad thai noodles.