Fish Cakes

After writing about the breaded shrimp balls that Jimmy's mom taught us how to make, I wanted to recreate it so I bought frozen shrimp, ground pork and fish paste.

The ground pork, garlic and shrimp was cut up on a cutting board until Mom and I realized that it would be much easier if we used the food processor.





Fish paste, green onions, oyster sauce, sesame oil, cornstarch, salt and sugar were added to the shrimp, ground pork and garlic. The mince was pulsed together to a sticky paste. Doesn't it just look so appetizing?



The fish mince was formed into small patties, breaded/dusted with flour, and shallow-fried in vegetable oil. At first, we tried breading the mince with some Italian breadcrumbs we had lying around. Although it fried up beautifully, the flavour of the breading didn't match. We tried using all-purpose flour and some cornstarch, but they ended up having a floury residue when we ate them. Andrew noted that the flour-dusted fish cakes did look similar to McNuggets.

The fish cakes tasted pretty good. They were not only bouncy but the fish cakes were juicy as well. I wish there was more shrimp and pork though. We had tried to recreate the same shrimp mince that Jimmy's mom made, but the little cakes tasted more like fish cakes than shrimp cakes. Although the ratio between ground pork, shrimp and fish paste was close to 1.5:1:1, the store-bought fish paste had a strong flavour. I'd like to add more shrimp next time. Also, I think panko breadcrumbs would be perfect. But in saying all of that, the tasty and bouncy fish cakes went very well with steamed rice.