I was recently asked if I could write a Yorkshire recipe for a charity cook book to help raise money for cancer, I jumped at the chance, I love doing anything I can for charity and I thought it sounded like fun. So Yorkshire recipes eh? This should be a doddle, after all half of me is from Yorkshire, I am only a semi Swede after all, firstly I looked through my blog recipes, not much in the way of Yorkshire recipes in there, I looked through my recipe scrap book, my most prized possesion, full of future posts, there must be something in there..... nothing. Then it dawned on me, I don't really cook British food, I hardly ever cook anything that is traditionally from Yorkshire, that's when I started to panic. Having grown up in a Scandinavian household I was brought up on completely different food to my friends, this clearly hindered my recipe mission, undeterred I though of things that I do like to eat from our lovely county. Of all the Yorkshire dishes I like to eat this has to be it.
My Yorkshire recipe is a classic using the finest grimsby smoked haddock but with a nod to my mother in all her culinary glory, classic fish cakes with a scandic twist.
For the fish
You will need:
400g of undyed smoked haddock
600ml of whole milk
2 bay leaves
10 whole black peppercorns
1/2 a white onion
1/4 tsp of freshly grated nutmeg
Place all of the above ingredients into a sauce pan and bring to the boil, as soon as it begins to boil turn off the heat immediately and allow the fish to poach in the residual heat, this method will cook your fish to perfection.
For the Mash
3 large maris piper potatoes roughly 700g
25g of butter
100g of mayonnaise
2 tsp of maldon sea salt
2 tbsp of salted capers (soaked in water to get rid of excess salt)
1 tsp of dijon mustard
50g of finely chopped sweet gherkins
1/4 tsp of freshly grated nutmeg
1/2 tsp of freshly cracked black pepper
4 tbsp of chopped dill
2 tbsp of chopped parsley
2 tbsp of chopped chives
The trick to really good fishcakes is dry potatoes, I have found that if your potatoes are very dry the fishcakes are less delicate and absorb more flavour from the fish. I always start by cooking the potatoes whole in the oven like you would do jacket potatoes, whilst the potatoes are still hot scoop out the insides of the potatoes and pass it through a potato ricer or mash. Add the butter and mayonnaise and mix the potatoes until smooth, then add the salt, pepper, nutmeg, herbs, dijon and gherkins. Soak the capers in a little water for roughly ten minutes to remove any excess salt, finely chop the capers and add this to the mash, if the mash is a little too dry you can always add 50ml of the poaching milk from the fish. Remove the fish from the milk and separate the flakes of the fish, removing the bones and skin in the process. Lightly fold in the flakes of fish. Form and mould the fish cake mixture into 8 large fish cakes and then place them onto a baking tray and re-fridgerate for an hour.
For the crumb coating set out three dishes,seasoned flour in one,place two lightly whisked eggs another and breadcrumbs in the last dish. Dip each fishcake into flour first and coat well, then dip in the egg, then the breadcrumbs making sure they are well coated.
Fry each fish cake in a large frying pan with a knob of butter and a tablespoon of vegetable oil. Cook the fish cakes five minutes a side until golden. Serve with a watercress salad and my fool proof tartar sauce.
You will need
50g of finely chopped sweet gherkins
3 tbsp of finely chopped shallots
1 tsp of dijon mustard
2 tbsp of capers in salt (soaked, drained and finely chopped)
6 tbsp of mayonnaise
1 tsp of honey
1 1/2 tbsp of chopped dill
1 tbsp of chopped parsley
1/2 tsp of cracked black pepper
1 tsp of lemon juice
Add all of the above ingredients together and mix well, that's it!
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