Sam's Kitchen

These are the beautiful gifts of the ocean we were treated to on the first evening of 2017. The fishcakes made out of freshly caught fish and the gorgeous looking steamed Australian rock lobster aka crayfish.

I served our simple but yet very fancy looking dinner with a thai style salad consisting of shredded wombok, julienned carrot, celery, capsicum, fresh coriander leaves and thinly sliced scallions. All was drizzled with a combination of lime juice, a splash of sesame seed oil, a drizzle of honey and fish sauce, and sprinkled with lightly toasted then crushed salted peanuts.

I used home grown fresh ingredients in this recipe. Since the quality and freshness of ingredients matter when preparing most of the dishes and more so Asian style dishes, using the freshest ingredients allowed to reach that authentic flavour I often crave.

Ingredients

1 kg firm fish fillets, roughly chopped
3 tbsp tapioca flour
1/3 cup chopped coriander, leaves, stems and roots included
5 cm piece fresh ginger, roughly chopped
3-4 kaffir lime leaves
2 1/2 tbsp fish sauce
2 garlic cloves, peeled
2 shallot onions, peeled roughly chopped
1-3 dried or fresh red chillies deseeded and roughly chopped
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 lime juice
1 tbsp grated palm sugar (or brown sugar)
1/2 tsp sesame seed oil
3/4 cup finely sliced green runner beans
Oil for frying

Serve with:
Thinly sliced spring onion
Coriander leaves
Thinly sliced red chilli
Lime wedges
Sweet chilli sauce

Method

1. Place all ingredients, leaving the beans out, into a food processor and process until smooth. Move to a bowl and mix the sliced beans with the mixture.
2. Shape small 5cm diameter patties.
3. Heat oil in a large pan. Fry the patties over a medium heat until browned on both sides (4-5 minutes on each side).
4. Serve sprinkled with sliced, spring onion, coriander leaves, sliced chilli, lime wedges on a side and sweet chilli sauce for dipping.

As we can see, the fish cakes got an approval from this little surfer.