Recipe 10: Salmon Cakes

So this week's recipe was by far sprinkles favorite recipe every... like out of everything I have made, there is this recipe, would would be rated like a 100 and everything else would be in the range of 10.... she just loved the salmon.

This week I made Salmon Cakes with a side dish of green beans and cherry tomatoes.  The link for the salmon cakes is here. and the link to the greean beans and cherry tomatoes is here.

Salmon Cakes

Ingredients

• 1 (14.75 ounce) can salmon, drained and flaked
• 1 small onion, minced
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup fresh bread crumbs
• 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
• 1/8 teaspoon hot pepper sauce
• 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1/4 cup shredded Cheddar cheese
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour for coating
• 1/4 cup butter
• 3 tablespoons olive oil

Directions

1. Combine salmon, onion, egg, bread crumbs, Worcestershire sauce, hot pepper sauce, black pepper, cheese and parsley; mix well. Shape into four patties. Dust lightly with flour. Chill for 20 minutes.
2. In a large skillet heat butter and olive oil over medium high heat. Cook the patties until browned on both sides, about 10 minutes. Drain briefly on paper towels before serving. 

Changes

So I made three changes to this recipe.  The first was that I added an extra egg to the salmon mixture.  This was one of the recomendations made by a lot of other users, and I think that it helped sort of hold the cakes together a lot better.

The second change was how I cooked it.  Instead of browning it in the skillet I decided to cook it in the oven.  So I cooked it at 375 for about 15 minutes on each side.  The final change was how I dusted it.  The recipe called for flour, but since I was cooking it in the oven I decided that I wouldn't use flour.  So after the first 15 minutes I flipped it and then dusted the cakes with parmesean cheese, which I think was a really good move.

Green Beans with Cherry Tomatoes

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 pounds green beans, trimmed and cut into 2 inch pieces
• 1 1/2 cups water
• 1/4 cup butter
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 3/4 teaspoon garlic salt
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• 1 1/2 teaspoons chopped fresh basil
• 2 cups cherry tomato halves

Directions

1. Place beans and water in a large saucepan. Cover, and bring to a boil. Set heat to low, and simmer until tender, about 10 minutes. Drain off water, and set aside.
2. Melt butter in a skillet over medium heat. Stir in sugar, garlic salt, pepper and basil. Add tomatoes, and cook stirring gently just until soft. Pour the tomato mixture over the green beans, and toss gently to blend. 

The Process

So I was a little bit nervous about this recipe, mainly because it used canned salmon.  So I have used canned tuna before... but salmon... I just wasn't sure how it would go.  I decided to get the most expensive can of salmon, because I figured, I should go with the best quality.  Also it was only thirty cents more, so it didn't really break the bank. 

 

So the one thing that I had to do that I was not expecting at all was that I had to debone the salmon.  There were still bones in the canned salmon, as well as some skin, which I also removed.  So that was kind of a messy process, but eventually I got it all seperated.  The picture below shows the end result.

After I stated mixing the salmon stuff, sprinks got the scent and came to check it out.  She was very very intersted and I had to smack her away several times.

Eventualy she discoverd that I had poured the juice out in the sink..... so she leapt at that, she would paw at the juice and then lick it off her paw and then go back in for more.

 I got the cakes all prepared.  The were kind of various sizes... but I suppose that didn't really matter.  I drizzled a pan with olive oil and put the cakes on that.  Then into the oven they went.

As I was working on the side dish, sprinkles kept licking her paws, savoring the taste of the salmon.

Once the salmon cakes were cooking, I started on the side dish, so I chopped up the Green Beans.  I didn't use 1.5 pounds, it was actually 12 ounces, but I think it was still a good ratio.

 I simmered the green beans for 10 minutes and then I worked on the cherry tomatoes.  I melted the butter and mixed the basil and sugar with it.

Then I added the cherry tomatoes to that.

Finally, I added that mixture to the green beans and tossed it to coat the green beans in the butter sauce.

As I mentioned before, I cooked the cakes for about 30 minutes, it might have been a little bit more.  After 15 minutes I flipped them.  Then added the parmesean cheese to the top.  One of the cakes was pretty crumbly, the other three had pretty good consistency.  I then cooked them until the cheese was melted and they were starting to get brown.  It was about 15 extra minutes, probably a bit longer.

I then made a sauce which was 2 tablespoons mayo and 1 tablespoon of dijon mustad.  The sauce was actually very complementary and very good on the salmon cake.  I thought the salmon cake ended up being really good.  I was pretty surprised, just because I wasn't sure how the canned salmon was going to work out.  I though the side dish was actually really good.  So in general, the meal was really good.

As a bonus here is Sprinks review of the Salmon:
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