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15 minute salmon cakes

This is one of the easiest recipes in my arsenal and it’s a great, fast mid-week meal.  It also makes for a nice appetizer to another more complicated meal because you can make the salmon cakes before hand, throw them in the frig and pull out to cook when ready.

• 1 can of salmon OR filet of salmon, steamed
• Egg, lightly beaten
• 3-4 crackers, crushed
• ½ tsp dill
• ½ tsp old bay
• Pinch of salt, to taste
• Few dashes of hot sauce, to taste

If you don’t have a can of cooked salmon (easiest) and instead have a frozen or fresh filet available, you’re going to first want to steam the salmon.  I don’t have a steamer, so instead I used a cheap wok and a cookie rack placed inside and covered it tightly with foil.  With an inch of so of water in your pan, steam the salmon, about a minute per ounce, over simmering water until cooked through.  Remove and set aside to cool.

If you are using canned salmon, drain and put in a small bowl, breaking up the salmon.

Mix all ingredients in a small bowl and taste, seasoning as necessary with more salt or hot sauce (if you want to add some peppers or onions to the salmon cake, sauté before adding to the mixture).  Take the lightly beaten egg and pour into a bowl, using about half of it (you really don’t need much to keep the cake together).  If you don’t have an egg available, I’ve found adding a tablespoon of water and a bit more crushed crackers will keep the patty together just fine.

Preheat a small sauté pan over medium heat with a couple tbsps of vegetable oil for about five minutes and cook the salmon for two minutes on each side, or until a nice crust forms.  All the ingredients are already cooked, so you’re really just giving the cake some color and bringing it up to serving temperature.

Of course you can get fancy and make a nice beurre blanc and serve the cake with some microgreens, but I really doubt anyone reading wants to do that.  I like mustard with my salmon, so I usually make a 1/1 ratio mixture of Dijon mustard to honey.

In the top photo, what I chose to do is to remove the salmon skin (my frozen filet was skin-on), dry it out well, and fry it.  It’s a nice little chip, and actually most of the omega-3s in salmon are in the skin.  The bottom photo (done with canned salmon) was served on a sesame roll with a 1/1 ratio mayo/Dijon mustard and some red lettuce.

This is about as easy as it gets.  The non-canned, steamed salmon really does produce a better result, but the canned works equally as well.  Bon appétit!