People, in general, would rather not eat whole fish. This may sound like a sweeping statement, but anyone in the restaurant business will tell you that customers are vastly less likely to order a whole fried bream than two seared fillets. You hear two common explanations: “Idon’t like looking my food in the eye,” and, “Eating a whole fish is just too messy.” In short, it’s all too fishy.
While I respect people’s preferences, I am afraid we don’t see eye to eye here. For me, losing the head and the tail means also losing out on some extraordinary flavours and super-crisp textures; in fact, with many fish, fried heads, tails and even bones, drizzled with a drop of lemon juice, are heavenly.
If, however, you are completely set on avoiding all the visceral stuff, the solution is simple: a fishcake.
The beauty of a fishcake, by which I mean any dish made of chopped-up fish (squidgy Thai tod mun pla, Turkish balik koftesi, Jewish gefilte fish, British flaky potato-based cakes, South American ceviche) is that it allows the fish to mix with all sorts of other ingredients and absorb their flavours, resulting in some wonderfully surprising combinations. In many cases, the fish turns into something far more textural, while its flavour stays in the background, gently holding everything together.
I had a great example of this on a tiny fishing boat off the coast of Essaouira in Morocco, when a couple of local fisherman minced whole freshly caught sardines, mixed them with local bread, shaped them into balls and quickly cooked them with tomatoes, cumin and preserved lemon. The sardines, with all their natural intensity, just bowed down to the acidity of the tomatoes and the lemon, creating a memorable yet subtle experience, not fishy at all.
Polenta-crusted fishcakes with spicy tomato and tarragonsauce
Serves four as a starter (12 cakes).
350g skinless and boneless firm white fish, cut into 3cm chunks
1 egg, beaten
1½ tsp ground cumin
¼ tsp chilli flakes
3 garlic cloves, crushed
150g cooked potato, roughly mashed (1 medium potato)
10g parsley, roughly chopped
10g coriander, roughly chopped, plus afew small leaves to garnish
40g quick-cook polenta
About 150ml sunflower oil, for frying
Salt
For the sauce
60ml olive oil
4 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1 red chilli, de-seeded, finely chopped
4 ripe tomatoes, blanched, peeled and roughly chopped
1 tsp caster sugar
5g tarragon, roughly chopped
First make the sauce. Pour the oil into a small saucepan and place on a medium heat. Add the garlic and chilli and fry for one or two minutes, until the garlic turns golden. Add the tomatoes, sugar and a third of a teaspoon of salt and cook on a low heat for about 15 minutes, or until the sauce thickens. Set aside until ready to serve, stirring in the tarragon at the last minute.
To make the fishcakes, place the fish in the bowl of a food processor and add the egg, cumin, chilli, garlic and a half-teaspoon of salt. Pulse several times to break the fish into small pieces. Don’t overdo it, though: you don’t want it to turn to mush.
Transfer everything to a large mixing bowl, add the potato and herbs and gently stir everything together. Use your hands to form 12 balls, about 45g each. Place the polenta in a shallow bowl and roll the balls in it to coat them.
Preheat the oven to 200C/390F/gas mark 6. Pour enough oil into a medium saute pan that it rises 1cm up the sides. Place on a medium heat and, when hot, add half the fishcakes. Fry for about four minutes, turning so they become golden-brown on all sides. Transfer to a parchment-lined baking tray and repeat with the remaining cakes. Place in the oven for five minutes, to cook through. Serve warm with the sauce, heated up if needed, spooned on top or alongside. Garnish with coriander leaves, if you like.
Smoked fish and parsnip cakes
I love these for breakfast, but they’re good at any time. If you don’t want to make the cream, serve with a wedge of lemon instead. Serves four.
4-5 parsnips (550g)
260g smoked cod or haddock fillets, skinless and boneless, chopped into 4cm pieces
25g fresh white breadcrumbs (about 1thin slice of bread, crust removed)
5g dill, roughly chopped
5g chives, roughly chopped
10g parsley leaves, roughly chopped
1 garlic clove, crushed
4 spring onions, finely chopped
Finely grated zest of ½ lemon
1 egg, lightly whisked
1 tsp caraway seeds, toasted and roughly crushed
20g unsalted butter
2 tbsp olive oil
Salt and black pepper
For the horseradish cream
2 tbsp finely grated fresh horseradish (or 1 tbsp horseradish sauce)
150g soured cream
2 tsp lemon juice
Preheat the oven to 200C/390F/gas mark 6. Mix together the ingredients for the horseradish cream with an eighth of a teaspoon of salt and a good grind of black pepper. Keep in the fridge until needed.
Place the parsnips on a small baking tray and roast for 30-35 minutes, until cooked through and soft. Once cool enough to handle, peel off and discard the skin. Place the flesh in a large bowl (you should have 270g cooked parsnip) roughly mash and set aside to cool.
Place the fish in a food processor and pulse a few times (you want it roughly chopped rather than minced) then add to the parsnip, with a half-teaspoon of salt, plenty of pepper and the remaining ingredients apart from the oil and butter. Mix well and form into eight patties: they should be about 8cm wide and 2-3cm thick. At this stage you could cover the patties and refrigerate until ready to cook, up to 24 hours ahead of time.
Add the butter and oil to a large frying pan and place on a medium-high heat. Once the butter starts to foam, add the patties and fry for six to eight minutes, turning over halfway through, until the fish is cooked and the patties are golden-brown. Serve warm, with a spoonful of the horseradish cream alongside.
Mediterranean ceviche
Pictured overleaf. The perfect summer starter, needing little more than bread alongside. Serves four.
3 small sea bass fillets, skinless and boneless, cut widthways into 2mm-wide slivers (240g)
2 tbsp olive oil
Finely grated zest of ½ small lemon, plus 2 tsp juice
1 small garlic clove, crushed
1 small preserved lemon, skin and flesh roughly chopped
20g pine nuts
½ plum tomato, cut into ½cm dice
25g pitted kalamata olives, roughly chopped
15g small nonpareille capers, or larger ones, chopped
2 spring onions, finely sliced
1 red chilli, finely diced
5g parsley leaves, finely chopped
10g basil leaves, finely shredded
Sea salt flakes and black pepper
Place the fish in a medium bowl with two teaspoons of oil, the lemon zest, garlic and a half-teaspoon of salt. Mix well and set aside for 10 minutes while you make the salad; at this stage you can also refrigerate the fish for up to two hours.
Mash together the preserved lemon skin and flesh using a pestle and mortar and set aside.
Place the pine nuts in a small frying pan with a teaspoon of oil. Fry on a medium heat for three to four minutes, stirring frequently, until golden-brown. Add to the preserved lemon and briefly grind so some are left whole and some are roughly crushed. Spoon into a medium bowl and mix with the tomato, olives, capers, spring onions, chilli, parsley, basil, two teaspoons of oil, a teaspoon of lemon juice, a quarter-teaspoon of salt and plenty of black pepper.
Divide the fish between four plates, spreading it out in a circle about 12cm wide. Spoon over the salad, making sure that some of the fish can still be seen around the edges. Drizzle each portion with a quarter-teaspoon of oil and a quarter-teaspoon of lemon juice and serve, with a final sprinkle of salt.
Yotam Ottolenghi is chef/patron of Ottolenghi and Nopi in London.
