So over the last few days I’ve been watching Eat Well For Less? where VMHQ’s favourite UK Masterchef judge Gregg Wallace and a mate go into people’s houses who are spending outrageous amounts of money on their weekly shop, and help them figure out how to cut it down.
There has been a lot of fish products spoken about and when fish cakes kept getting mentioned I found myself desperately craving the lemony mashed potato fried cake part of it all and wound up in the kitchen whipping these up for dinner. Behold: Vegetarian fish cakes!
Now I didn’t make them fishy tasting (although I’m not opposed to it) but you could if you wanted to with some seaweed flakes or kelp granules. I keep none of those in the house despite my survival prepper pantry (too lazy) so I gave them a miss.
In place of the fish chunks, I used half a can of cannellini beans, and just mashed them a little bit to retain slight texture. They have about zero flavour so if you/the fam aren’t into beans you can rest assured you won’t bite into these and cry. Both my fussy kids ate these and I did mental cartwheels from the excitement of it all.
They are also incredibly cheap to make – potatoes, beans, lemon, egg, salt, flour is the base of it, which you can customise according to what you have on hand. I love a bit of green onion and parsley.
Now you have four choices to coat these puppies in:
- dip into beaten egg and then into breadcrumbs (panko or regular, whatever floats your boat)
- roll in cornmeal/polenta (my choice as I was out of breadcrumbs)
- dust in a bit of flour
- leave plain
And you can either bake or fry these but I’m all about the fry. A bit of butter, a bit of oil to stop from sticking, and happy days.
I used a mixture of boiled potatoes and some leftover baked potato from when I made potato skins for the NRL grand final feast. I know plenty of people prefer the baked for various reasons, but I couldn’t really tell much of a difference, so prepare your mash however you want.
We served with homemade tartare (to 200ml mayonnaise add 2 chopped gherkins and 2 tablespoons of capers and a squeeze of lemon) and a salad. Which the children didn’t eat. Of course.
PrintVegetarian Fish Cakes
- Prep Time: 10 mins
- Cook Time: 20 mins
- Total Time: 30 mins
- Yield: 8 patties 1x
- Category: Dinner
- Method: Frying
- Cuisine: Vegetarian
Description
Got a craving for the lemony mashed potato fried cakes part of fish cakes? Me too. These vegetarian fish cakes should fill the gap.
Ingredients
- 200g cannellini beans, rinsed and drained
- 4 Large potatoes, boiled and mashed
- 2 Large eggs
- 1/2 Medium lemon, zested
- 2 tablespoons plain flour
- 1 cup cornmeal polenta
- 1/2 cup finely diced celery (optional)
- 2 Small shallots, finely diced (or regular onion)
- 2 stalks green onions, sliced thinly
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley (dried is fine, just use a little less)
Instructions
- In a large bowl, roughly mash the cannellini beans.
- Add the rest of the ingredients (except cornmeal) and stir to combine.
- Form into patties, roll in the cornflour, and chill in the fridge (overnight is best, but I made some after 30 minutes and they were great).
- Heat a large pan over medium heat, and add some butter and olive oil. Fry patties gently for about 8 minutes each side until golden and crispy, and cooked through.
- Serve with an extra wedge of lemon and your favourite sauce.
AN B says
These look great. And how funny about the tartare sauce- my two love it and ask for it with everything (I’m talking “Mum can I have tartare sauce with my sausages?” everything!)
hugoandelsa says
These look totally delicious! There’s something so comforting about mashed potato, especially when it’s crumbed and fried!
JohannaGGG says
I can’t say I have any memories of eating fishcakes but they still seem like great comfort food and I love the look of yours – am all for the comfort and not so much into the fishiness
Shari from GoodFoodWeek says
Ummm – YUM! I tried adding in a can of beans to my regular tuna fishcakes and I love the idea of adding some hidden veggies into the family’s dinner.
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