British Trout and Watercress Fishcakes

Ingredients

• 750g British trout fillet
• 2 large baking potatoes
• 125g British watercress
• 2 tbsp wholegrain mustard
• 1 lemon, zest and juice
• 4 cloves garlic
• 1 bunch flat leaf parsley, finely chopped
• 1 bunch dill, finely chopped
• 4 eggs
• 200g fresh breadcrumbs
• 50g plain flour
• Salt and pepper
• Glug of rapeseed oil

Method

• Preheat the oven to 190 Degrees C
• First you need to cook the fish. This could be steamed or poached but the simplest way is to wrap in tin foil on a baking tray and steam in the oven. Depending on whether you have one large piece of fish or smaller fillets this will take 15-20 minutes. Check and remove when it is just cooked through and the flesh flakes away easily with a fork. Undo the foil and leave to cool.
• At the same time, pop your baking potatoes in the oven and cook for 1.5 hours until cooked through.
• Once the fish is cool, flake the flesh into a large bowl. Check carefully for bones and discard the skin. Try to keep in slightly larger chunks rather than flaking really finely.
• Once the potatoes are cooked through (check with a fork), remove from the oven, slice in half and allow to cool a little. Once cool enough to handle, but still warm, scoop out the flesh into a potato ricer and press through, adding to the fish. (If you don’t have a ricer you could use a masher at this point but a ricer does speed up the process). You can reserve the skins to make crispy potato skins later!
• Crush the garlic cloves, glug the oil into a medium sized saucepan over a low heat. Add the garlic and cook gently but don’t allow to colour. Roughly chop the watercress. Add the watercress to the pan, stir through the garlic, pop on the lid and wilt for a couple of minutes on a low heat. Once the watercress has wilted down remove from the heat.
• Tip the mixture into the bowl with the fish and potatoes. Add the lemon zest and juice, mustard, chopped herbs and season generously with salt and pepper. You really need to taste the mixture here to get the seasoning right and adjust. Add a little more lemon too if you like.
• Next shape the fishcakes. I like to weigh them to keep them a consistent size but you don’t have to. If you choose to weight them, 120g should make you about 10 fishcakes but adjust depending on preference.
• When shaping it helps to have a bowl of cold water ready to pop your hands in between fishcakes which makes shaping them easier. Roll into balls and flatten slightly. Lay out on a tray lined with baking paper and pop in the fridge for at least an hour to firm up.
• Next prepare to pané the fish cakes (cover in breadcrumb). You will need 3 containers, large shallow tupperwares or baking dishes work well here. In one put your flour with some salt and pepper, give it a quick whisk to combine. In the second crack your eggs and whisk well, and in the third container put your breadcrumbs.
• Work along your production line coating each fishcake in flour, followed by the egg wash and finally rolling in the breadcrumbs. I like to repeat stage two and three (egg wash and breadcrumbs) to make sure it has a good crust but this isn’t essential.
• At this stage you can freeze your fishcakes ready for a quick meal at a later date.
• To cook, shallow fry in a non-stick frying pan in rapeseed oil (or vegetable, not olive oil- the flavour is too strong). Cook for a couple of minutes on each side until golden and then transfer to a baking sheet and finish warming through in an oven heated to 180 Degrees C for 15 minutes.

Kindly shared with British Trout by Katy from http://www.peterleymanorfarm.co.uk/