Improved fish and shrimp cakes

Fish and shrimp cakes



As always, measurements are approximate.



¾ lb yellowtail
1 lb shrimp
1 cup shredded cabbage
2 carrots
4 green onions
1 small onion
½ cup chopped cilantro
1 tbs grated ginger
2 eggs
1 tsp salt
1 tsp black pepper


Panko bread crumbs

Oil


I was angling for a bit of Asian flair with some of the veggies, but the result turned out pretty Western. Celery, garlic, mushrooms, spinach – you could mix up the veggies greatly.


Chop all the vegetables fine. Chop the fish and shrimp not so fine. Mix together with the 2 eggs, ginger, salt and pepper. Form into patties and roll in bread crumbs (you could do this a day or two in advance). Fry in shallow oil over medium heat for 3 minutes per side or until brown and cooked through.



Dill Sauce

¼ cup chopped dill
½ cup mayonnaise
Juice of 1 lemon
½ tsp salt

Chop the dill, squeeze the lemon, stir in the salt.

Serves 4-6.

Ravioli time!

Raviolis:

won ton wrappers
8 oz spinach
4 oz mushrooms
4 oz feta
4 oz mozzarella
2 oz parmesan
2 cloves garlic
olive oil


Sautee the mushrooms in some olive oil. Add Italian
sausage at this point if you want meat. Once they are
nice and brown, add the spinach and the garlic and
cook only briefly, until the spinach is soft.

Let this cool a little and add to the crumbled cheese.
I might experiment with herbs next time, marjoram or
thyme maybe.

Hold a won ton wrapper in the palm of your hand. Add
about a teaspoon of filling to the center. Moisten
your finger (on the hand not holding the ravioli
naturally) with water and dampen all the area around
the filling, out to the edges. Not too wet, but
definitely damp. Gently place another won ton wrapper
on top. Press the two wrappers together, and squeeze
out any air inside. I spend some time pinching them
together, but

They are very sticky at this point so I toss them
liberally in a bowl with cornstarch before I stack
them on a plate or in a storage container.

Cooking them is tricky because they are delicate.
Bring water to a boil, drop them in, and reduce the
heat to a low simmer for 5 minutes.



Sauce:

1 cup chicken broth
2 cups tomato sauce (Trader Joe's ftw)
2 oz cream
1 tsp cornstarch

Reduce the chicken broth by half or more, add the
tomato sauce. Dissolve the cornstarch in cold water
and add to sauce for thickness. Simmer for 30 minutes,
add cream.

Fish cake salad

The fish lady is amazing, this weekend she had larger shrimp than usual, and some nice yellowtail, in addition to the sole I normally get. I made fried fish cakes out of them, good for sandwiches or alone or with a salad.

12 oz fresh fish and shrimp
2 eggs
1/4 cup bread crumbs
1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese
2 large mushrooms, chopped
1/4 onion chopped fine
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
1/4 cup half and half
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 tsp salt and pepper

This makes maybe 4-8 servings, you can make it ahead of time and keep it for a few days.

Mix the ingredients in a large bowl, form into patties and pan fry on medium heat for 4-5 minutes per side. For dinner last night, I simply pulled salad from a bag (also from the Brentwood Farmer's Market, the salad dudes, pea sprouts and arugula and spinach), added some tomatoes, balsamic vinegar and french dressing, and put a fish cake on top. Yummy.

Mousse pie #2 - Butternut squash, almond, chocolate

One medium butternut squash, roasted
1/2 cup half and half
4 eggs
1/2 cup almond flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup chocolate chips
Pinch of salt

Mix ingredients well in a bowl. Pour into dish or pie crust. Top with sliced almonds. Bake 30-45 minutes at 350F.

Fritatti Di Gamberi Florentine (spinach mushroom shrimp cake)

Homestyle gourmet is simply adding special ingredients and techniques to normal dishes to make them something more. The major contributors to this trope are the Trader Joe's chicken broth, and the fish and produce from Brentwood Farmer's Market. Discovering the chicken broth allowed me to create much richer, better sauces, and the produce from the farmer's market is a new level of freshness as well as low cost.

My point is, if you do all your shopping at Ralph's, like I did until recently, it is just making it that much harder to make a special dish. You need to range out and get the good (not necessarily more expensive) stuff.

In particular for this dish, the sole/flounder and shrimp from the Brentwood fish lady are inexpensive and outstanding quality, and make this next dish excellent, at a reasonable cost.


Fritatti di gamberi florentine:


12 oz fresh fish and/or shrimp, cleaned and cut into small cubes
2 oz bread crumbs
2 oz dry grated cheese (parmesan)
2 oz fresh chopped spinach
4 oz fresh chopped mushrooms
1 oz fresh chopped Italian parsley
2 oz cream
2 oz olive oil
1 egg
2 cloves crushed garlic


Mix all ingredients in a large bowl. Heat olive oil in a pan to medium. Form mix into patties and cook for 4-5 minutes per side (deep golden brown). Serve on toast with mayo and spinach leaves, or just by itself with a salad or side dish...or...just by itself. Yum.

This is what I actually made, but they were a bit loose, maybe another egg would have bound the mixture into firmer patties. However, taste-wise it was just un REAL. Very yummy.

Chocolate-pumpkin mousse pie

Being around the Thanksgiving season, there is a lot of winter squash around. I baked one and made it into a soup, and it was so good that my mind started dwelling on pumpkins. Eventually, out popped this.

Chocolate-pumpkin mousse pie

1 small pumpkin (1 lb or so)
8 oz chocolate chips
1 stick of butter
1 cup of milk
6 eggs
1/4 cup flour
1/4 cup cream



Bake the pumpkin in a 350F oven for an hour or two. Remove the skin and seeds. Make a thick roux with the butter and flour. Add milk to roux and boil, it will turn very thick. Turn off heat and mix in the chocolate chips. Combine pumpkin, eggs, and cream in blender, then mix well with the roux. Pour into a buttered dish or pie crust. Bake 35-40+ minutes at 350F.

Next time I might drop out some chocolate and add some sugar.

Spinach soup with pistachio-shrimp dumplings

Spinach soup:


6-8 oz fresh spinach
2-4 cups chicken broth or water
1 tbs butter
1 tbs olive oil
2 tbs cream (milk works too)
Salt, pepper

Heat the chicken broth separately. Heat the olive oil and butter in a pan. Add the spinach and cook on high for 1 minute. Add the hot broth and turn off the heat. Season with salt and pepper. Blend thoroughly in a blender. Start the blender slowly, mine blew the lid off even with my hand over it, due to the heat. Add cream at the end or before serving.

Shrimp dumplings:

¼ cup raw pistachios
2 tbs flour
2 tbs olive oil
2 tbs cream
1 cup chicken broth
1 clove garlic
¼ onion
2 eggs
8-10 oz shrimp and fish
Bread crumbs


Roast the pistachios in the olive oil over low heat for 5-10 minutes. Remove the pistachios and make a roux with the remaining oil and the flour (sauté the flour until it smells toasty). Add half the chicken broth to the roux until it bubbles, and remove heat. Combine remaining ingredients except for the roux and bread crumbs in a blender and blend well. Combine blender mix with the roux. Add bread crumbs if needed to get a thick paste. Drop spoonful sized dumplings into lightly boiling soup and cook for 5 minutes.

Serve with toasted baguette slices.

These dumplings are very soft, if you have any suggestions for a fish ball recipe with a firmer consistency, let me know!