When I was last in Aldi, I picked up a tin of their pink salmon. Wondering which of lots of things that can be done, I wondered what to do with it. I thought it could well price up to make fish cakes, which I love! So I had a little look at what I would need, and yes, price up it did.
I thought that dried potatoes would be cheaper, but in the event, it didn’t make any difference to the price of that part at all.
You can either use fresh or dried potatoes to make them. Aldi’s salmon was quite a bit cheaper, but they only had fresh potatoes.
This mixture makes 4 substantial fish cakes. They can be frozen, which I will have to do as I am the only one that likes fish. I had one at lunchtime today with 2 huge handfuls of spinach, some tomatoes from the greenhouse and a tsp of dressing. I shall have the same on Thursday when I do my 2nd 5:2 day for this week. The other two I carefully wrapped, individually, in cling film and put them in the freezer, and I shall probably have those for my 5:2 days next week.
You could use tinned tuna to make these, or value smoked mackerel, or indeed fresh mackerel. If you can stretch to it, fresh smoked haddock or fresh salmon would be fab.
I would serve these with a green salad, or peas, green beans or baked beans, or like I had today, a massive salad.
Ingredients
- 213 g salmon pink salmon, 213g £1.45
- 120 g instant mash Smartprice, 120g/28p or 300g fresh potatoes
- 100 g onion 5p
- 30 ml vegetable oil £1.08/litre, 3p
- 2 tblsp flour to dust with
Instructions
- Make up the dried mash as per the packet instructions, or peel the fresh potatoes and boil in slightly salted water until tender. Pass through a ricer if you have one, or mash well with a hand masher or fork. Don’t add any milk or the finished fish cake won’t fry very well. Season your mash with salt and pepper, be generous. I thought a bit of butter would add more flavour, but it didn’t, so have left it out here.
- Open the tin of salmon and drain well. Mash the salmon, skin, bones and all, you won’t notice it in the cooked fish cake.
- Mix the salmon into the mash.
- Chop the onion finely and give it a little sizzle in a pan with some of the oil before adding it to the fish cake mix. The onion wouldn’t really cook very well in the finished fish cake if added raw, so we need to cook it first.
- Fashion the mixture into 4, patting and shaping into rounds. Place some flour on a plate and carefully dust each fish cake with the flour. Put the fish cakes in the fridge for an hour or so to firm up if you can. click here to start a 2 hour timer
- When ready to cook, heat half the oil in a heavy based pan and fry gently until golden on the bottom. Carefully turn over, they are quite fragile, and fry the other side.
Equipment Needed
I don’t know where that came from! I’ve removed the reference to the egg, thanks
No egg mentioned in list of ingredients but I love the recipe.
Mmm, that sounds a good option
Hello Lesley
I’m looking forward to hearing about your foodsense project.
It might be slightly more work than using dried potato, but liquidised butter beans with tinned tuna, lemon zest and cinnamon make good fish cakes. You can use the water from the beans instead of egg and add breadcrumbs to the mix if you want more bulk. Lidl have tins of butter beans for 35p. I like the traditional breadcrumb coating, but perhaps not if you are dieting