Cooking good food makes everyone richer

Cake day continues with this delicious lyric inspired dish. My brain occasionally gets into a loop with song lyrics, and just never seems to let them go. One such lyric mentions tilapia fish cakes and I have wanted to make them since the first time I heard the song some 3 years ago. I ended up serving these over fettuccine cooked in aioli with some fresh parmigiana, and some fresh squeeze lemon juice. Needless to say easily makes it to mouth heaven, and though it might not be good enough to die for in the short-term, it is definitely good enough to kill(fish) for.

Ingredient List ~$4

• 1 1/2 tilapia fillets, approx. 1/2 lb
• 1/2 red onion, chopped
• 4 cloves of garlic, crushed and chopped
• 1/2 cup of potato (red), chopped
• 1/2 cup of carrot, chopped
• a few basil leaves, ripped
• salt, to taste
• pepper, to taste
• 1 egg
• 2 tbsp all-purpose flour
• vegetable and olive oil

I started by getting everything ready for cooking, chopping the veggies and thawing the fillets out. Begin cooking by pouring a little olive oil into a frying pan, and begin to saute the onion and garlic. After about a minute add the potato and carrot. You can season with the salt and pepper at this point. Add the basil in shortly before removing from the heat, everything should be getting a nice golden color to what color it was prior. Remove ingredients from pan and place in a blender with 1/2 tbsp olive oil and the egg. Blend the ingredients together, it is ok if there are some larger chunks of carrot, or potato left, but the majority of the mix should be indistinguishable from the originating ingredients. Place mixture into a bowl.

Dice up your tilapia fillet and throw into the frying pan with a little olive oil for moisture and flavor. As the tilapia warms up you should be able to take a wooden spoon or for, and mash it until it is the consistency of canned tuna. Be sure not to over cook the fish as it will be fried later on. Once all your fish is cooked, add to the bowl with the blended batter mixture.

Add in the flour and mix thoroughly. You now have your fish cake ‘batter’. To give it a little more consistency before frying I decided to chill it in the freezer for 5 minutes, though 8-10 probably would have been better, you could store them in a freezer for a later occasion just be sure to seal well. Once you have removed the fish cake batter from being chilled, get a pan of vegetable oil heating up. Use enough oil to cover about 1/2 of your hypothetical fish cake.

I pre-made the fish cakes using a 1/4 cup to portion and shape the cakes. With the aid of a spoon I placed one cake at time onto a spatula and into the hot oil. Use the first cake to gauge how quickly your oil will cook, I did about 90 seconds on each side. To flip I used the spoon again to slide the cake onto the spatula and flip. While the cakes were delicate to handle, they were not necessarily fragile. After they are done cooking, place on a paper towel to absorb excess oil. Serve as desired.

This recipe made 6 fish cakes. I served this over fettucine but it would also have tasted great on a salad, on its own, in a sandwich, or probably anywhere else you like food. Bottom line is, these are easy to make, and are much cheaper/better than restaurants and grocery store versions. While I used tilapia you could replace with a similar quantity of crab, shrimp, salmon, and maybe if you are really adventurous, some pork shoulder.

Eat Well!