Thai Fish Cakes
Submitted by sarah hyland
Fragrant Thai-spiced salmon cakes with lemongrass, ginger, and lime zest, baked instead of fried. These healthy fish cakes are ready in 25 minutes and bursting with fresh flavors.
YIELD
5 servingsPREP
5 minCOOK
20 minREADY
25 minFresh salmon gets pulsed with aromatics like lemongrass, ginger, and lime zest until it forms a chunky paste that holds together beautifully.
Thinly sliced green beans add texture and color while fish sauce brings that essential umami punch.
Instead of frying, these cakes get brushed with olive oil and baked until just cooked through, making them lighter but still full of bold Thai flavor.
Serve with a crunchy carrot salad and extra lime wedges for squeezing.
Chef Tips
- Don’t over-process the salmon; you want it slightly chunky, not paste-like
- Fresh salmon works best, but drained canned salmon can substitute in a pinch
- Slice green beans as thin as matchsticks so they blend into the cakes
- These freeze beautifully; bake from frozen, adding 5 extra minutes
- Thai sweet chili sauce makes an excellent dipping sauce
Ingredients
Ask your fishmonger to skin and roughly chop about 700g of salmon for you, so you end up with about 600g of skinned salmon chunks. You can also use trout or other fish in this.
1 onion, peeled and roughly chopped
1 knob ginger, peeled and roughly chopped
1 stalk lemon grass, roughly chopped
Zest of 1 lime
Good pinch sugar
Few splashes of fish sauce
Salt and pepper
I bunch spring onions, very finely sliced
Olive oil
Approx 600g skinned salmon, cut into chunks
Approx 200g green beans
Directions
Put the onion, ginger, lemon grass, lime zest, sugar and fish sauce in a food processor and whizz until it makes a finely chopped paste. Add the spring onions and salmon and pulse until mixed enough that you can form them into fish cakes. You don’t want it to be total mush, but slightly chunkier than minced beef, if possible.
Slice the green beans very finely – about as finely as the spring onions – and then throw them in and season the whole mixture lightly. Mix with a spoon and then shape into eight decent-sized fish cakes. Place them on parchment paper on a baking tray. Drizzle each with a little olive oil and brush or rub it on with your fingers. Bake for about 12 to 15 minutes at 180 degrees/gas 4. They may brown ever so slightly on top, and they do cook quite quickly. Serve with the carrot salad and a squeeze of lime juice.
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