Fish Cakes 101

Lately I’ve been researching the types foods children like to eat for consulting work at the Hillside Foodbank. I wanted to create delicious, healthy seafood meals and wondered what types of seafood kids will actually eat! After some brainstorming with the Foodbank chefs we decided to develop fish cakes as our first seafood recipe. I asked Chef Paul to order fish sticks as a ‘control’. My research had shown breaded seafood such as fish sticks are a popular seafood choice for kids. Fish tacos, fish pasta dishes and chowders are also fairly popular and we’ll work on these next.

When I develop a recipe I always begin with researching and building the ‘chef’s gold standard’ recipe. I can adopt this to the consumer (kids) in a few iterations based upon dietary, equipment, cost, packaging etc… guardrails.

I decided to build a fish cake recipe with inspiration from the delicious CIA, American Regional cod cake recipe I taught for many years. I always start with the best!

It’s one of my favorite recipes for making fish cakes with cod, pollack, crab, salt cod, salmon, shrimp etc….

The chefs decided the most practical way for them to safely work with cod would be to purchase frozen and bake with moist heat in the combi oven until cooked. We were surprised to find almost 20% of the frozen cod was purge so it’s very important to use the weight of the cooked cod after straining for the formulas. We’ll produce thousands of delicious, cod cakes per day so everything is weighed for standardization and safety.

The cod is quickly cooled, then picked for any possible pin bones, shredded and mixed with the other ingredients.

Chef Tom’s Fish Cakes

• 3 lb fresh cod fillet

• 1 Cup mayonnaise (I like Kewpie)

• 6 oz washed, minced celery

• 1 Tbsp dijon mustard (I like Grey Poupon)

• 1 Tbsp Old Bay spice

• 1 tsp onion powder

• 1 tsp Kosher salt

• 1/4 tsp white pepper, ground

• 1 egg, cracked and whisked

• 1 Tbsp Ritz Crackers, processed to crumbs

  Trim the codfish, place in a sheet pan and bake in a 325° oven uncovered until opaque and firm, remove and cool.

  When fish is cool, remove any bones and flake into 1/2” pieces. (I like to do this by hand)

  Combine the mayonnaise, celery, mustard, spices and egg; mix well. Add the Ritz crackers and mix to incorporate.

  Form into 2 oz. portions and mold into rounds.

  Bake at 450 F in a preheated oven until lightly browned. You can also pan fry in your favorite oil.

• This recipe works great with crab and salmon as well. I like to keep the fish cakes lightly seasoned and add spice or heat with the condiments…

• You can also dredge in flour or standard bread with flour, eggs and breadcrumbs before pan frying. I don’t think this is necessary if the cakes are made properly.

Next we make a few, smaller cakes and bake them to evaluate seasoning and texture. When the recipe is perfect, the fish cakes are formed into 5 oz cakes using an ice cream scoop.

This photo shows four different fish cakes; salmon, cod, pollack and surimi/cod. The cakes are baked, cooled quickly and plated to send to the hungry kids for lunch tomorrow!

We’re also developing lightly seasoned, fresh vegetable blends and potato sides for the kid’s meals. A variety of condiments will be sent with the meals for the kid’s to choose from.

Cod and surimi crab stick ‘cake’ with baked potato and veggie blend. Salmon ‘cake’ with diced potato and veggie blend.