November 21st: fish cakes! and apples & sweet potatoes baked together + more cookies

Verdict:
Try Again: fish cakes
Toss: apples & sweet potatoes

Sunday night. I am (self-)routine-bound most days of the week, but no more so than on Sunday night. I do not go off schedule. However, I'm having surgery this week, which makes me a little more morbid than usual, and I opted this weekend to optimize my time with Olivia, just in case I don't make it. You never know. Therefore, when Greg suggested (last minute) that we join Casey, Kelly & Ella at the Barrhaven Parade of Lights (Santa Claus parade) on Sunday evening, I thought I'd better go for it. This was fun for the kids in snowsuits and sucked for the adults in jeans and sneakers. Lesson learned.

Unfortunately, I had been soaking salt cod in preparation for making fish cakes, and even though we were out of the house for several hours, which encompassed supper time, I wanted to go ahead with making supper, no matter how late it ended up being. Which led to:

First, the side dish: From Cooking With My Kid: Baked Sweet Potatoes & Apples.  O would have loved these, had she still been awake when we were eating them. Hopefully she enjoys them in her lunch this week. G & I were more indifferent however, so, banished.

Now, for some back story:


When I was home in August, I was in Sobeys with Mom, guru of all things in the kitchen, and we were at the fish counter where Mom was buying salmon. Noting the packages of salt fish on display, and having always wondered what to do with one (especially after reading Sylvanus Now), I asked Mom, who promptly bought a package, took it home, and amazed me with her fish cake-making skills. Well, she amazed me a day or two later, as one of the catches with salt fish is you have to soak it in fresh water to get the salt out of the fish. Combine cooked fish with some potatoes and herbs, dredge and fry and voilà: fish cake heaven. I ate more fish cakes than anyone else that night.


I've been wanting to make fish cakes ever since. But blast it, the salt fish in Ottawa's grocery stores don't have recipe on the back of the package (yes, M followed a recipe on the package). They have some reference to a web site, but who wants to go looking online for recipes? Oops, that's what I do all the time. In the meantime though, there appeared a recipe in the Citizen, so I decided to go with that one. I had to modify slightly, as this is a deep-fry recipe, and I pan-fried in my lovely new Scanpan frying pan.

Here's the recipe, including several questions it raised in my mind, to which I do not have the answers:

Fishcakes and Aioli
Makes about 25 pieces.

For fishcakes:
1 lb (454 g) salt cod
4 cups (1 L) milk
2.75 lbs (1.25 kg) potatoes
1/2 cup (125 mL) parsley
1/2 cup (125 mL) dill
1/2 bunch chives
1/2 cup (125 mL) flour
salt and pepper to taste (optional)
oil for frying

Ingredients for crumbing:
1/2 cup (125 mL) milk
4 large eggs, lightly beaten
flour for dredging
panko bread crumbs to coat

For aioli:
1 cup (250 mL) mayonnaise
juice of 1/2 lemon
2 cloves garlic, finely minced

To prepare salt cod:
1) Soak salt cod in cold water in refrigerator for 24 hours; remove from refrigerator and rinse repeatedly throughout second day to remove excess salt.*
2) Place rinsed salt cod in large pot and cover with milk; bring to boil and simmer until tender.** Strain and let cool; discard milk.

To form fishcakes:
1) Peel potatoes and place in large pot with water. Bring to boil and simmer until cooked.
2) Strain and mash.
3) Roughly chop all herbs.
4) In a large bowl, flake the salt cod into small pieces.
5) Add potato, herbs and flour. Combine well (do not overwork).
6) Season to taste, if necessary (salt cod will add salt to the mixture).***

To crumb:
1) Combine milk and eggs in one bowl. Place panko and flour in two additional bowls.
2) Form salt cod into small cakes, about 1/4 cup (75 mL) each.
3) Dredge fishcakes in flour, shaking off excess, then in egg and milk mixture and finally, crumb in panko.

To fry:
1) Heat large frying pan over medium-high heat. Add oil when hot and allow to heat. Fry fishcakes for 5 minutes each side, lowering heat if necessary, until golden brown and heated through. Fishcakes can be refrigerated. Do not freeze.

To prepare aioli:
1) Combine all ingredients and store in refrigerator until ready to serve.

*Does this mean you are actually supposed to leave it on the counter-top during the second day? I didn't like that idea, so I kept it in the fridge, and changed the water a couple times over the course of the day.
**How long should salt cod take to get tender? Quickly, like fresh fish? Over a longer period of time? I had no idea. I boiled for about 15 minutes, which, from what I read online, should be okay.
***I didn't add salt or pepper; tasted fine.

Did I mention? We loved these. The garlic aioli was delish. Were they as good as Mom's fish cakes? I think maybe. The only thing they were missing, in my opinion, was onion. G doesn't enjoy onion as I do, so I think he'd disagree.



Can you see the time on the clock? 10:01 p.m. That's when supper was finished.

 Also today, I pulled another pack of gingerbread dough from the freezer and made one of the suggested options from November 2009's Chatelaine: Sugar crackle cookies. I would say these were not as good as the gingerbread men, but were tasty in their own right. Better as a treat with tea. In this case, the recipe is supposed to make 35 cookies, and my 1/4 package made 10. I'm beginning to think I didn't divide my dough evenly.