Salmon Cakes

The great canned fish price and nutrition comparison post is still in draft.  In the meantime, I did not want to loose site of a couple of successful cooking experiments involving canned fish.

I tried to make salmon cakes a while back using the standard egg, bread crumbs, chopped celery, chopped onion type recipe and was very disappointed in the result - tough and dry.  Yesterday I had the idea to try using cooked rice for the filler instead.  Great improvement!  My proportions were

Rice, white, cooked             450 g - This sounds like a lot to me, but it's what I recorded

Salmon, pink, ~1/2 can        198 g - Drained and cleaned

Onion, 1 med                        41 g - chopped fine

Garlic, 1 med clove                  3 g - minced

Celery, 1 stalk                       39 g - chopped fine

Eggs, 1 large                         50 g - beaten

Recipe, total                        782 g

Oh, yeah, salt and pepper, of course.

I blended the ingredients adding the egg last (may not be necessary but it's what I did) to get a mixture which could be easily shaped into cakes.  This should be enough for 6 medium size salmon cakes.  I put them on a baking pan which had been sprayed with PAM, sprayed the cakes with a little PAM and baked them at 400 until they started to brown, maybe 25-30 minutes.

DISCUSSION

That rice number looks high to me but it is the weight I wrote down.  If you try this, put in as much rice as looks right and gives you a form-able cake and see if my number is right.

I was making rice for a quiche crust - didn't have any left overs - so I used it freshly made and still warm  Presumably you could use left overs.

Since I was investigating texture, I did not really put much thought or effort into seasoning.  These would be good with a fresh herb mixed in, maybe savory or dill, plus, you know, a little ground mustard, a very small dash of red pepper for excitement, etc.

I was very pleased with the result.  These turned out light, not tough, and delicious.

I ate mine with lemon-dill raita, of course.  I have been using the lemon-dill raita ever since I made it.  It keeps very well and the flavor blend improves with age.  This is one to keep on hand at all times, a real winner.

NUTRITION

This recipe should make 6 medium salmon cakes of 130 g each (calculated including all water content so they may weigh less after baking) containing 159 cal each in a 58/15/27 proportion (carb/fat/protein calories as percentages, respectively).  Essential amino acids are complete; leucine is lowest at 140%.  Each cake contains 3.6 g of fat with 0.62 g of omega-3 and 0.22 g of omega-6 for a w-3/w-6 ratio of 2.8.

Lindsey