I know I’ve told you before about how my Indian mother-in-law is a wonderful cook. Â She makes everything just taste good. Â So good. Like fish cutlets, for example, which she calls Kerala-style fish cakes. Â I’ve never had any variation other than the standard potato and fish with maybe some minced parsley for good measure. Â Then Amma came and shook up my world with ginger and onion and chile.
I feel so blessed to have a lovely, multi-cultural family. It makes life and food so much more exciting and colourful.
It’s been several months since she was here, so I went by memory – I can’t remember if her version uses dry spices. I included turmeric, which has a wonderfully bright colour and bitter-citrusy flavour, and cayenne. Â I’m pretty sure she uses more oil, and fries them a deeper brown.
The cakes are bound together with an egg, but are still quite fragile. I recommend chilling them in the fridge for an hour before cooking (or even before breading, if you’re finding the mixture too soft).
I fried the fish cakes in ghee (clarified butter), because I keep some in my pantry, and also because yum.
I had some leftover potato from another meal, but don’t use leftover mashed potato if it has milk or cream added – it will be too wet.
To quickly cook a potato, prick the skin with a fork and microwave on high heat for 6 minutes or until tender, flipping once halfway through. Let cool, then remove skin and mash. Or, of course, just boil it (but why bother with a peeler, and then dirty another pan?).
This makes a super quick dinner or weekend lunch. You can substitute 6 ounces of any leftover fish in place of the canned tuna, and feel free to omit any of the ingredients that you don’t have on hand – they’ll still be yummy (even if it comes back down to just fish and potatoes).
And they freeze really well (pre-frying), so go ahead and double the batch. Â Thaw in fridge before frying.
Serve with ketchup and/or mayo for dipping.
Fish Cutlets
Ingredients
- 1 ½ cups mashed potato
- 1 6 oz can tuna drained
- 1 tbsp packed minced cilantro
- 1 tbsp packed finely grated ginger
- 1 thai green chile finely chopped
- 1 tbsp minced red onion or shallot
- ½ tsp ground turmeric
- ¼ tsp ground cayenne
- 1 tsp kosher salt or to taste
- 1 large egg
- ½ cup breadcrumbs I used panko
- ghee or oil for frying
Instructions
- In a large bowl, stir together potato, tuna, cilantro, ginger, chile, onion, spices and salt, using a fork to thoroughly combine.
- Taste and add more salt if needed.  Once  the is seasoning right, then use a fork to whisk in the egg.
- Spread breadcrumbs on a plate. Scoop mixture by 1/4-cupfuls and flatten into 1/2"-thick circles between your palms to make cakes. One at a time, place cakes on the breadcrumbs to coat the bottom, then use a spatula to carefully flip to coat the other top. Transfer fish cakes to another plate and chill 1 hour.
- Heat 2 tbsp of ghee or oil in a large skillet (cast iron is ideal) over medium heat. Â When shimmering hot, carefully slide in half of the fish cakes. Â Don't crowd them by doing all in one batch, you need space to maneuver a spatula to flip them. Â Cook about 6 minutes, flipping once halfway through, reducing heat if browning to quickly.
Really enjoyed making this and my husband and 3 year old devoured it, I should have made double the amount and will when I make this again! I changed up some stuff to cater to our family: used plain GF flour instead of breadcrumbs (was going to use actual GF breadcrumbs but ours were expired), chia seed egg replacement instead of 1 egg, and canola oil. Also only did half a green Thai chili though could have done a whole, no cayenne but did a mix of smoked and regular paprika, yellow onion instead of shallots, parsley instead of cilantro because I didn’t have much cilantro. I also added a garlic clove or two, splashes of lime and lemon juices, garlic powder, onion powder, cumin… Basically anything I thought it also needed after tasting the mix. Really happy I did this (and experimented with what flavour I was feeling). We loved it and will do it again! I wonder if it would work well doing less potato and more tuna, because it wasn’t much tuna between us three. Thanks for sharing! Also, this would be great with a dip of chutney! We didn’t have any but my toddler liked it with ketchup, husband and I with a little bit of sweet Thai chili sauce, and some splashes of lime were the perfect touch before biting in!