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| Phone-quality picture of a patty. Browned outside, with a great inside and excellent mouth feel texture when eaten. |
I've seen variations on how to make fish cakes over the internet from recipe sites, YouTube videos, and tried many. The greatest issue to me while making them is ensuring everything is cooked, moist (not dried up), and holding together (not breaking apart).
This method using both egg yolk and bread crumbs is what I find works best. This recipe makes four (4) medium-sized tuna cakes. You will need to adjust ingredients accordingly depending on size of the vegetables and cans of tuna, of course. The important thing though is to not add too much pepper or onion so that it would make molding the cakes difficult. While I've set out what I think is a reasonable amount of pepper and onion you will need to determine on your own how much to add so that you can still form patties and not be overcrowding the mix. Adding cilantro or whatever herb you choose and its quantity is up to your discretion, though I would not recommend adding so much that it is overpowering.
What you need:
- Two small cans of flaked tuna in olive oil.
- 1/8 red bell pepper
- 1/4 white onion (or smaller if it's a larger one)
- Small amount of cilantro/coriander, chopped
- Two eggs (yolk only)
- Bread crumbs (usually sold in containers)
- Salt, pepper, for seasoning
- Small pan for cooking on stovetop
- Oven-made dish for use
- Mixing bowl, and small bowl to drain oil from tuna
- Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit
- Drain most of the oil from the two tuna cans into the small bowl and add tuna to the mixing bowl. Some won't be removed from the tuna but that's okay. Flake the tuna until all of the pieces are broken apart and small.
- Finely dice red pepper and white onion (very small pieces are important for formation of patties).
- Pour small amount of olive oil from the tuna to the pan on the stove at high heat and add in the onion and peppers shortly after (within the minute)
- Allow the onions and pepper to cook for a minute or two so they become soft, and then add in one medium-sized spoon of bread crumbs. At this point when the bread crumbs have soaked all of the oil. Cook for another minute and then turn off the heat to put in the cilantro.
- Add your cooked ingredients from the stove to the mixing bowl where your tuna is. Season with salt and pepper and mix thoroughly. Adjust salt/pepper accordingly.
- Break two eggs and separate the whites from the yolks. Add the yolks to your tuna mixture and mix.
- Add in additional bread crumbs to adjust for the added liquid to the mix. You would want to start using your hands here to determine if you can form patties with the current mix, and be moist, flaky, but not outwardly breaking apart.
- Form four medium-sized patties with your hands from the mix and set onto your dish for oven use.
- Add some remaining oil onto your tuna patties and put in the oven for 15 minutes to bake.
- Watch the patties cook, and if browning on one side take them out and carefully flip. Optionally, you can also broil near the end of the cooking process.
These patties can be consumed immediately. They should look golden brown and ready to eat. Please let me know if you have any difficulties or improvements to this recipe. I've usually only made it by not exact ingredient quantities so am interested in seeing how others manage.
