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August 8, 2006

Recipe: Salmon Cakes with Dill Sauce

Tonight, my dad comes back from Canada and he's bringing with him over 30lbs. of Salmon. In preparation for this coming heavenly abundance of freshly caught fish I have been spending an increasing amount of time finding different ways to cook salmon. One of my favorite recipes thus far is salmon cakes. Not only are they delicious, but inexpensive and quick to make as well.

Salmon cakes are pretty much exactly the same as crab cakes except salmon meat is used. This results in a smoother texture and flavor. Where the essence of crab cakes revolves around the flavor of the crab, salmon cakes are a blend of all the ingredients with no specific flavor predominating. There is no strong fish taste in the cakes which makes it a suitable dishfor people put off by strong tasting seafood.

While the cakes can be baked, I highly recommend pan frying them. The contrast of textures provided by the crunchy, pan fried crust and the softer inner cake is essential to the dish. The tangy dill sauce further provides a nice counterbalance to the dryer, saltier cake.

Salmon Cakes w/ Dill Sauce

Makes 8 cakes.
Prep time: 10 minutes
Cooking Time: 10 minutes (20 minutes if you can only fit 4 cakes in the pan)

The Ingredients:

For the Cakes:

2 6oz cans of salmon (Ive used both premium salmon at $2.50/can and cheap salmon at $1.50/can. I noticed no real difference between the two. Make sure to get boneless skinless salmon though.)
2 eggs
1/4 cup seasoned dry bread crumbs
1/4 cup potato pancake mix or dry potato flakes
1 onion
2 cloves garlic
1/2 tsp dill (if you serve the cakes with the dill sauce, you can omit the dill in the cakes or use less)
1/4 tsp. celery salt
Enough olive oil to coat your pan
Dash of salt and pepper
1 tsp. Paprika

For the Dill Sauce:

2 Tbs. dijon mustard
2 Tbs. Mayonnaise
3/4 tsp. dill
1 and 1/2 Tbs. Buttermilk

The algorithm:
Beat the eggs and set aside. Mince the garlic and the onion. Shred the salmon into a large mixing bowl. Mix in eggs,garlic, onion, bread crumbs, potato flakes, dill, and celery salt. Mix well. Form the mix into 8 equal sized balls. Press balls into a cake shape. The cakes will be fragile so be careful with them. Sprinkle paprika on top.

Coat a pan with olive oil.Cook the cakes for 5 miuntes on each side over medium heat. Be careful when flipping them. I highly recommend using a spatula.

While the cakes are cooking, mix the dijon mustard, mayonnaise, dill, and buttermilk to form the sauce. The sauce can be used for dipping or spread ontop of the cake.

(Sorry the finished salmon cake pictures aren't up to snuff, I apperantly lost (or didn't take?) the good ones.

Posted by Adam Rugg at August 8, 2006 3:42 PM | Comments (48) | EatFoo 1.0 Posts

Comments

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Canned salmon? What? I know salmon is available in Florida at the fish counters in supermarkets. What's with the canned shit?

The sauce looks great, by the way.

Posted by: Barzelay at August 9, 2006 4:54 AM

of course fresh salmon can be used but I personally do not think it makes the cakes any better.

I first made the cakes using canned salmon because I am fairly poor at the moment and many of the recipes I saw called for canned salmon.

Last night though I actually made the salmon cakes with fresh salmon for me and my dad when he got home. The salmon I used was the salmon that he just caught while he was in Canada so iy was the freshest it could possibly be.

I did not find much difference between the cakes made with the canned salmon and the cakes made with the fresh salmon. Like I said before, the salmon taste is very subtle in the cakes.

I was very adverse (I made numerous disgusted faces at the store) to using canned salmon in this recipe, or any recipe for that matter. But after making the cakes with premium canned salmon, standard canned salmon, and freshly caught pacific salmon, I think canned is the best way to go for the recipe. Canned salmon is much cheaper, more convenient, and it produced the same flavor as fresh salmon.

Posted by: Adam Rugg at August 9, 2006 1:36 PM

Yeah, I'm just being snobby for no reason.

Posted by: Barzelay at August 10, 2006 12:37 AM

Indeed, the sauce does look good. Im a fan of mixing premade stuff together like that to make a completely different kind of sauce.

Posted by: Chris Santoro at August 10, 2006 11:35 PM

Lucky to find you, keep on the good workk guys! Best of luck.;

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