Mini Salmon Cakes @MaddieDayAuthor

Maddie Day here. Remember a couple of weeks ago I shared a recipe for my birthday son's favorite cake? His brother hosted the afternoon backyard party, which featured hearty appetizers. I made these mini salmon cakes with a lemon aioli sauce, and they were a big hit, so I thought I'd share the recipe here.

They would be a great contribution to a Fourth of July party or any other outdoor gathering.

Mini Baked Salmon Cakes

Adapted from TasteandSee.com by Holly Sander

Ingredients* 

1 1/2 pounds salmon fillet

1 1/2 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 teaspoon pepper

1 small onion, diced, sautéed

⅔ cup plain dried breadcrumbs

½ cup finely chopped fresh parsley

⅓ cup mayonnaise (or Greek yogurt if you prefer)

1 large egg, lightly beaten

4 tablespoons lemon juice

½ cup Greek yogurt

1 teaspoon Sriracha sauce (add more if you like things spicy)

4 teaspoons lemon juice

¼ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon pepper

*Author apologies - I thought I took a picture but the photo didn't make it onto my phone.

Instructions

Preheat oven to 400.  Rinse and pat dry the salmon, then place on a parchment-lined baking sheet and season with ½ teaspoon salt and pepper.  Roast until cooked through, about 15 minutes.  Allow to cool 5 minutes then using forks to flake or separate the salmon into small pieces.

Place salmon in a large bowl.  Add onions, breadcrumbs, parsley, mayo, mustard, egg, and 4 tablespoons lemon juice.   Season with 1 teaspoon each salt and pepper, then mix gently. 

Using a 1 ½ inch scoop and your hands, form the mixture into balls and place on a parchment-lined baking sheet. 

If you are freezing the salmon cakes, leave them on the baking sheet and place them in the freezer. Once firm, store them in a resealable freezer bag until needed.

To finish the cakes, bake on 400 for about 15-20 minutes, just until they start to crisp and become golden.  

Combine yogurt, Sriracha, 4 teaspoons lemon juice, salt, and pepper in a small mixing bowl, and whisk thoroughly.  Adjust salt and pepper to taste.

This appetizer was super popular at the birthday party. I served them room temperature, but hot from the oven would be great, too.

Readers: What's your favorite appetizer to bring to a party - or to eat?

🐟🐠🐟

A Poisonous Pour is out and available wherever books are sold!

Next up is Murder at the Toy Soldier, Cozy Capers Book Group #8, which releases in late August.

My most recent releases are Murder at Cape Costumers,

Scone Cold Dead, #13 in the Country Store Mysteries,

and A Case for the Ladies.

Check out all my writing.

We hope you'll visit Maddie and her Agatha Award-winning alter ego Edith Maxwell on our web site, sign up for our monthly newsletter, visit us on social media, and check our all our books and short stories.

Maddie Day (aka Edith Maxwell) is a talented amateur chef and holds a PhD in Linguistics from Indiana University. An Agatha Award-winning and bestselling author, she is a member of Sisters in Crime and Mystery Writers of America and also writes award-winning short crime fiction. She lives with her beau and sweet cat Martin north of Boston, where she’s currently working on her next mystery when she isn’t cooking up something delectable in the kitchen.

Fresh Salmon Cakes @LucyBurdette

Lucy Burdette: I do not care much for salmon. There, I’ve said it! I know it’s good for me, and I know lots of people think it’s a treat. And I will eat it if it's presented at a dinner party. But I will not order it, no matter how delicious the sides that come with the fish sound. 

Now you understand how extreme it was for me to try making my own salmon cakes. And it happened because the recipe in Once Upon a Chef looked good enough to eat lol. I served it to three friends and my husband (who also does not care for salmon) and all of them found the cakes delicious. So you be the judge!

Ingredients

1 1/4 pounds fresh salmon

1/4 cup mayonnaise

1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

1/2 teaspoon salt

Freshly ground pepper

1 1/4 cups Panko breadcrumbs, 1/4 cup for the patties, and the remainder for frying

Three scallions,

Two stalks of celery

2 tablespoons fresh dill

1/4 teaspoon smoked paprika

1/4 teaspoon ground mustard

1 teaspoon celery seed

1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

Note that Jennifer Segal, the chef at Once Upon a Chef, uses Old Bay seasoning rather than the combination of paprika, ground mustard, celery seed, and cayenne pepper that I used. I am always looking for ways to reduce salt, so I used some of the ingredients that come in Old Bay without the salt. I also cut back the salt itself.

Stir together the lemon juice, mustard, mayonnaise, spices, and finely chopped dill.

Chop the scallions and the celery finely.

If there is skin on the salmon, remove it. Then chop the fish into small chunks. Mix the lemon juice combination plus the scallions and celery and 1/4 cup Panko into the chopped salmon. (The salmon needs to be in small bits so the cakes will stick together.)

Spread the remainder of the Panko on a large plate. Form the mixture into golf ball sized balls, and flatten them on the Panko, turning them gently to cover both sides with breadcrumbs.

The salmon cakes can be refrigerated for a couple of hours until you are ready to cook them. 

Fry them on medium heat until both sides are brown and the fish looks pink. Serve with cocktail sauce (my favorite) or tartar sauce, your choice.

I served the salmon cakes with a green salad, baked sweet potatoes, and strawberry shortcake to finish. 

It was a lovely spring-ish meal, and didn’t I prove that I can be flexible? However, I still will not order salmon when I’m out to dinner--I will always choose crab cakes instead!

Last but not least, A DISH TO DIE FOR, #12 in the Key West food critic mystery series, will be out on August 9, but is now available for preorder wherever books are sold

About A Dish to Die For:

Peace and quiet are hard to find in bustling Key West, so Hayley Snow, food critic for Key Zest magazine, is taking the afternoon off for a tranquil lunch with a friend outside of town. As they are enjoying the wild beach and the lunch, she realizes that her husband Nathan’s dog, Ziggy, has disappeared. She follows his barking, to find him furiously digging at a shallow grave with a man’s body in it. Davis Jager, a local birdwatcher, identifies him as GG Garcia, a rabble-rousing Key West local and developer. Garcia was famous for over-development on the fragile Keys, womanizing, and refusing to follow city rules—so it’s no wonder he had a few enemies.

 When Davis is attacked in the parking lot of a local restaurant after talking to Hayley and her dear friend, the octogenarian Miss Gloria, Hayley is slowly but surely drawn into the case. Hayley’s mother, Janet, has been hired to cater GG’s memorial service reception at the local Woman’s Club, using recipes from their vintage Key West cookbook—and Hayley and Miss Gloria sign on to work with her, hoping to cook up some clues by observing the mourners.

But the real clues appear when Hayley begins to study the old cookbook, as whispers of old secrets come to life, dragging the past into the present—with murderous results.

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SALMON CAKES

by Sheila Connolly

A few weeks ago, some of us bloggers here were lucky enough to hold a joint signing at a wonder cookbook store called Salt and Pepper Books in Occoquan, Virginia.  Talk about heaven!  An entire store filled with delightful kitchen gadgets (like I don't have enough already) AND books, including our food-themed books.  Not only that, people came to buy our books!  This is exactly what a signing should be like.

Of course I bought several things, including two Irish-themed cookbooks written by Margaret M. Johnson.  I can't tell you how excited I am about them.

Irish cooking has long had a bad rep—potatoes, watery stews, cabbage, and potatoes.  It's understandable, because for a very long time, the Irish peasants (the majority of the country) lived on potatoes, cabbage, and milk or butter.  Every day.  In fact, it is a nutritionally balanced meal, and it kept those peasants going—until the famine in the 1850s, when the potatoes died.  No potatoes meant no food, which meant people died in large numbers or left the country forever.

Sorry for that depressing bit of Irish history. What I want to say is that Irish cooking has most definitely moved beyond the potato, and there's some great stuff coming out of small restaurants and even pubs there these days.  I started leafing through one of Johnson's books, The Irish Pub Cookbook (2006), and immediately grabbed for my sticky pad so I could mark recipes.  And then wrote her a fan email. After all, my coming County Cork Mysteries are set in a small pub in Ireland (but my heroine is going to have to learn to cook!).

This was the first recipe that caught my eye, only because it was near the front of the book—there were plenty more, but I'm saving those for another day.  For us here in New England, the outdoor grilling season is a little unpredictable, so maybe this is a farewell to non-summer fare.

SALMON CAKES WITH DILL SAUCE (from The Irish Pub Cookbook, with a few small tweaks)

1 lb. salmon filets, poached until flaky (do not overcook or mash up)
2 Tblsp minced fresh chives (the only thing growing in my garden)
1 tsp minced or grated fresh ginger
1/3 cup mayonnaise
Salt and pepper to taste
2 large eggs
½ cup milk
All purpose flour for dredging
Bread crumbs for dredging

Flake the salmon into a medium bowl and stir in chives, ginger and mayonnaise.  Season with salt and pepper.

Shape the mixture into four 3" cakes (I made more because there were three of us).  In a small bowl, whisk together the eggs and milk.  Put the flour and breadcrumbs in two shallow dishes or flat pie pans.  Dip each cake in flour, then egg wash, then bread crumbs.  Refrigerate for one hour (so they'll hold together when you cook them!).

In a large skillet over medium heat, heat the oil.  Fry the salmon cakes for 3 minutes on each side, or until golden.

DILL SAUCE (optional)
1 Tblsp unsalted butter (Irish if you've got it, of course!)
1/3 cup minced shallots
1½ cups fish stock or bottled clam juice
¾ cup heavy cream
Freshly ground pepper
2 tomatoes, peeled, seeded and chopped (Fresh is best, but you may use canned.  If you do, drain the tomatoes before adding to the sauce.)
1 Tblsp minced fresh dill

In a small skillet over medium heat, melt the butter and cook the shallots until softened but not brown.  Add the fish stock or clam juice and cook for 5-8 minutes until reduced by half.  Add the cream and cook for 3-5 minutes.  Season with pepper.  Strain the sauce (if you want), then return it to the pan and stir in tomatoes and dill.

You may substitute white wine for part of the fish stock. If you do, add it before the fish stock and cook for a few minutes to let the alcohol evaporate.

So Simple Salmon Patties

Wahoo! Congratulations to our own Julie Hyzy for winning the Anthony and Barry Awards for her book, THE STATE OF THE ONION! We're absolutely delighted for you, Julie!


Over the years, my mother and I have tried loads of different recipes for salmon patties. We've used potatoes, rice, onions, garlic, Worcestershire Sauce, lemon juice, bread crumbs, and, well, the list goes on and on. But have you ever noticed that the yummiest crabcakes have the least ingredients in them? Turns out the same is true for salmon patties. I love this recipe because it's crispy on the outside, soft inside, and so delicious. Plus, it's easy to make. No chopping, no crumbs, no fuss -- and ingredients that you probably have in your kitchen right now. It's a quick and easy lunch or dinner.

I use canned salmon to make this. My preference is for pink salmon, but you can use red salmon if you prefer. Pink salmon has a little bit less omega-3 in it (the reason we're all eating salmon) than red salmon, however, as a result, pink salmon has a less fishy taste. If you're making these for kids or fussy I-hate-salmon types, make it with pink salmon.


You'll notice that the recipe doesn't specify how much olive oil to use. That's because it depends on the size of your pan. You do need to use more oil than you would for a simple saute, maybe an 1/8 to 1/4 of an inch, but not as much as you would for deep frying. The key is to heat the oil before adding the patties. A good test is to add a drop of water. If it sizzles, the oil is usually hot enough. I like to look at the oil. It shimmies a little bit around the edges of the pan when it's hot. But don't overheat! I start just below medium heat and turn it to medium low once the patties and oil are sizzling.

So Simple Salmon Patties

1 14 3/4 ounce can salmon

2 slices bread torn into one inch-ish pieces (not toasted)

2 eggs

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon paprika

olive oil


1. Place all ingredients in a bowl, mix together by hand, and shape into patties.

2. Heat the oil over medium to medium low heat.

3. Add the patties. Watch to be sure they don't burn. Cook 4-5 minutes on each side.

Serve and enjoy! I like these with mustard, but I have to say a dab of mayonnaise can be very good with them too.