Cod Cakes

For what it's worth, my efforts are often unsuccessful. Cooking without a recipe-- my process, I'll call it-- means cooking instinctively, and sometimes my instincts are off.

I saw someone on Food Network make cod cakes, a knock-off of crab cakes, which I love. I've never worked with crab, and I've certainly never made a crab cake, but I've eaten a few, and I was determined to try this recipe. Cod is fairly mild fish, which I say as a person who does not eat fish. The finished product (spoiler alert!) had a taste reminiscent of crab cakes, and if they had been served properly, they probably would have been delicious. More on that later.

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I purchased frozen cod fillets at Hannaford. They came two to a package, and I ended up using just half of one piece (which means we'll be attempting this recipe again). Step one is to put a frying pan (one for which you have a lid) on the stove with maybe 3/4" water. Place the frozen fish (or fresh, if you have it) in the pan, and cover it until the fish has poached and is cooked through. While that's happening, I poured maybe a half cup to a cup of breadcrumbs into a bowl, along with seasoning: garlic, lemon peel (dried and crushed), and black pepper. When the cod was poached, I pulled it out of the water and plopped it into the bowl. I used a potato masher to pulverize the fish, then I used my hands to incorporate all of the ingredients. I added one egg to bind the mixture together, so that I could form four palm-sized cod cakes. The mixture did not hold together as well as I'd hoped, but I really didn't want to add more crumbs or another egg, so I squished and formed the cakes until they held together well enough to gingerly move them. I heated some olive oil with a teaspoon of butter (for flavor-- love that saltiness), and when that sizzled, I put my cod cakes carefully into the oil. A couple minutes on each side, and the cakes were brown and hot through.

Here's the rub. The sides were not done yet, so I placed the cod cakes in a pan and stuck them in the oven to keep them hot. Big mistake. When everything was eventually ready, the cod cakes were dried out and hard. The flavor was still there, and I believe in this process, but I would wait until the last possible minute to fry them. Lesson learned.

The sides were simple. I took two white potatoes, sliced into rounds, and sprinkled them with black pepper. I placed them on a cooling rack on top of a cookie sheet so they would be elevated and not fester in their own droppings. They took longer to cook than I thought they would, hence the dried cod cakes. But they tasted fine. With a little more seasoning and a little more time, they would have been delicious.

The other side was another coleslaw. I chopped the cabbage into small-ish pieces and tossed them with a mixture of Dijon mustard, honey, and lemon juice. I have never been a huge fan of Dijon mustard (unlike its yellow cousin, which I adore), and this was too much for me. But Ram loved it, and if you enjoy Dijon, you will too.

So those are cod cakes. Next time (and there will be a next time) I'll fry them off at the last minute so that we can enjoy the sizzling, hot, flaky cakes, with fork in hand.