Emerald Fishcakes – Leftovers Transformed

There’s a bedroom in my home that is painted an awful, comic book shade of blue-green. It may be one of the reasons that houseguests usually leave after just three days. The bizarre shade was one of those mistakes that can occur in trying to assuage a mini teenage rebellion. Time passes, kids grow up, tastes develop, and now my daughter’s got her colour tastes all sorted out.

While we’re on the topic of transformations—Take leftover plain cooked white fish and potato, dress it up with tasty tidbits and voilá! You have spicy, beautiful, palate-pleasing Emerald Fishcakes.

Emerald Fishcakes

• 11 oz lightly cooked white fish, boneless, drained, roughly chopped
• 11 oz cooked potato, finely chopped
• 2 T coconut oil
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1 fresh green chili, minced
• 1 T each grated fresh ginger, garam masala
• 1 small onion, minced
• 3/4 c very finely chopped coriander, chop stalks and leaves separately
• 1 egg beaten
• 1 T flour

Yogurt Mint Sauce

• 1 c Greek yogurt
• 3 T finely chopped mint
• pinch of sea salt
• squeeze of lemon

Heat a tablespoon of coconut oil in a large pan on medium. Add garlic, chili, ginger, onion, masala, salt, pepper and coriander stalks. Stir, and when the onion is softened, add the potato and fish.  Cook, stirring for a minute or two until the ingredients are dry. Remove from the heat. Mix and mash ingredients in the pan. Add egg, coriander leaves and flour. Form the mixture into 16 fishcakes, laying them out on a large platter.

Wipe out the large pan, then heat a tablespoon of coconut oil on medium, and fry the fishcakes 2 minutes per side. Add more oil if needed. Place fishcakes on paper towel. Serve with Yogurt Mint Sauce and cooked vegetables or salad. Serves 4 as a main meal, 8 as an appetizer.

Note: To make these Emerald Fishcakes, I used haddock, roasted for 10 minutes at 400F with a little olive oil, Herbamare and freshly ground black pepper. Then I squeezed on some lemon and drained all the liquid before refrigerating.—and I just removed the thin skin from some yellow fleshed baked potatoes. I used madras masala instead of garam masala.

Emerald Fishcakes Print Ready Recipe

Final notes:

• Kudos to photographer, David Loftus, who inspired these Emerald Fishcakes with his Fragrant Bengali Fish from his cookbook, “Around the World in 80 Dishes.”
• The latest news on ridding the body of toxins—Avoid them.