Wild Salmon and Caper Fish Cakes with Watercress Hollandaise
– How to cheat

Although dedicated cooks have long recognised that tinned salmon makes better fish cakes than fresh, the packaging of tinned salmon has not hitherto been very inspirational. Not so now. Marks & Spencer have been very clever here and given us a classy product – wild salmon from Canada, beautifully packaged in a stylish-looking tin. Add to that some ready-to-go mashed potatoes and even more brilliant, a fresh hollandaise sauce, and this recipe turns out to be quite a quick and wacky little number coming from someone who might not be deep into cooking.

Serves 2 (or double for 4 or treble for 6)

Ingredients

213 g tin Marks & Spencer Wild Canadian Red Salmon
2 cornichons
1 rounded dessertspoon small capers
3 good pinches of cayenne pepper
1 x 85g pack watercress
about one-third of a 450 g tub of Marks & Spencer Ultimate Mash
2 tablespoons flour, seasoned
1½ tablespoons groundnut oil
1 teaspoon butter
salt and freshly milled black pepper

To serve:

1 x 200g pack Marks & Spencer Hollandaise Sauce
a good squeeze of lemon juice
lemon quarters
salt and freshly milled black pepper

First, open the tin of salmon and tip the salmon into a sieve held over a sink. Now press the salmon with the back of a tablespoon to extract as much moisture as possible because if it’s too wet it makes the whole thing more difficult. After that, tip it into a mixing bowl, break it up a little bit with a fork, add the cornichons (chopped small), the capers (also squeezed to press the moisture out), the cayenne and some salt and pepper.

Next, reserve about ¼ of the pack of watercress for later. The rest of it now needs to be chopped, preferably in a food processor, then add a tablespoon of it to the salmon, along with the mashed potato, and mix everything really well with a fork till it’s all evenly distributed.

Now put the seasoned flour on a large plate and transfer the fish cake mixture to a board. Divide the mixture into 6 and then shape into 6 little rounds – once that’s done, give each one a good coating of flour to stop them sticking to your hands. If you don’t need them straight away, cover and leave the fish cakes on the floury plate in the fridge but for no longer than an hour.

When you are ready to cook the fish cakes, it’s important to get the oil really hot in a large frying pan, then add the butter and as the butter turns to foam, add the fish cakes. Turn the heat down to medium and cook them for 2-3 minutes on each side or until they are golden brown. They are delicate, so turn them over very carefully, using a fish slice and a fork. After that, remove them to some crumpled kitchen paper to drain and keep warm while you deal with the sauce.

Squeeze the sauce out into a small saucepan and heat it gently without letting it come to the boil, season with salt and freshly milled black pepper and a good squeeze of lemon juice. Then at the last minute, stir in the rest of the chopped watercress. Serve the fish cakes on top of the reserved leaves with the sauce round and some lemon quarters to squeeze over. Imported, fresh, shelled peas would be a nice accompaniment. You can freeze the leftover mash for the next time you want to make the fish cakes again or serve it with some bangers the next night.

How To Cheat Hero Ingredients:

Marks & Spencer Wild Canadian Red Salmon
Marks & Spencer Hollandaise Sauce
Marks & Spencer Ultimate Mash

How To Cheat Equipment Hero:
Kenwood CH180 Mini Chopper
Available from Woolworths, Argos, larger Boots stores, Sainsbury’s House of Fraser, Allders and Safeway

Delia says, 'If you want to short-circuit lots of tedious chopping and knife sharpening, I’m really enthusiastic about this ingenious mini food processor. 1 tablespoon chopped parsley: 2 seconds, ¾ packet watercress: 4-5 seconds, a finely chopped onion… you name it – thousands of fast little processes that save you time.'

This recipe first appeared in You magazine.

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