Food
How to Make Fish Cakes with Homemade Tartar Sauce | Step-by-Step
Learn how to make fish cakes, a New England Lenten classic made with firm white fish, mashed potatoes, and tangy tartar sauce. Just add lemon!
By Aimee Tucker|Mar 13 2017|
Add lemon and serve hot!
Credit: Aimee Seavey
Homemade Tartar Sauce | How to Make Fish Cakes
Credit: Aimee TuckerCredit: Aimee Tucker Because I love a good dipping sauce, I wanted the recipe to include a quick and tasty homemade tartar sauce to serve alongside the fish cakes. You’ll also use a small amount of it in the cakes themselves, so we make that first, using a combination of mayonnaise, horseradish, relish, scallions, parsley, lemon juice, and hot sauce to taste. If you know you do a lot of dipping, feel free to double the recipe and really slather it on. Many fish cakes are traditionally made with cod, but since local cod stocks have taken a major hit in recent decades, we opted not to use it. Hake is an inexpensive, sustainable white fish that works well in chowder and fish cakes, so that’s what we used, but you can feel free to substitute any firm white fish. Brush it with a little olive oil and bake until cooked throughout.
Baked Hake | How to Make Fish Cakes
Credit: Aimee TuckerCredit: Aimee Tucker While the fish is baking, bring a pot of salted water to a boil. Peel and chop the potato; then boil until tender, about 10 to 12 minutes. Drain and let it rest in the colander a moment or two; then return the potato to the pot over low heat to dry out, mashing and stirring to prevent sticking. Reserve one cup of mashed potato in the pot (discard the rest, or save it to eat later). Add the lemon zest, parsley, scallions, salt, pepper, and cayenne to the pot (or a bowl as I did here), plus a little bit of the tartar sauce, and mix, tasting until the seasoning is right. Then, flake in the cooled fish and gently stir until just combined (you want to keep those chunks of fish relatively whole).
Shaping the Fish Cakes | How to Make Fish Cakes
Credit: Aimee TuckerCredit: Aimee Tucker To shape the cakes, I like to start by rolling “meatballs” so I can see that they’re all the same size without too much handling. Flour your hands if you feel like the mixture is sticking, but not too much! Then, gently pat the ball into an even cake, being careful smooth the sides. Ragged sides are prone to crumbling, and you don’t want your cakes falling apart in the pan. Once shaped, the cakes get a brush of egg before a coating of breadcrumbs. My favorite are the crunchy Japanese-style Panko crumbs.
Shaping the Cakes | How to Make Fish Cakes
Credit: Aimee Tucker
I can’t seem to find the Tartar Sauce recipe within the Fish Cakes recipe here ?
Hi Dorothy! The tartar sauce recipe is listed first, above the fish cakes. Please let us know if you still can’t see it! Thanks!
If u look real hard there is no recipe for the tartar sauce, just a picture of tartar sauce. But it’s ok I make a great tartar sauce.
Hi Gary. If you click “View and print the recipe for Fish Cakes with Homemade Tartar Sauce” at the bottom of the post, it will take you to a page with the full recipe, including the tartar sauce. It comes first in the recipe because you use some of it in the fish cakes. Thanks!
Personally I make a much simpler Tartar Sauce. Mix As much mayo as you want with as much sweet pickle relish as you want. That’s it. If you want more add some dill, pepper, and salt.
Oh my gosh! These look delissssssssshhhhhhhhh! And very easy to make. I can’t wait to make them, maybe next week I have company coming over and they love any-kind of seafood! Thanks for the recipe!