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Authentic Thai Fishcake Recipe with a Dipping Sauce
Fishcakes are found on street corner food stalls in Thailand and when you compare them to western style fishcakes, you will find them to be aromatic and very flavorful. These fishcakes are not battered so you can taste the freshness of the herbs, spices, and fish better.
Eat these fresh out of the fryer while they are hot. You can serve rice on the side, if you like. Make the fish paste up to twenty four hours in advance if that helps. Just cover it and chill it, then you can shape the fishcakes and fry it the following day. Instead of cod, you can use any white-fleshed fish fillets.
If you want to make breaded fishcakes, make the patties bigger and thicker and chill them for ten minutes. Then dip them in a beaten egg and roll them in Panko breadcrumbs. Fry them in a couple of inches of oil until they are golden brown. They will be crispy on the outside but moist and juicy on the inside - a bit like traditional crab cakes.
Delicious Deep Fried Thai Fishcakes
Ingredients -
3 tablespoons coconut milk
½ tablespoon chili powder
1 lb cod
¼ teaspoon ground coriander
6 kaffir lime leaves, cut into very thin strips
3 sliced green onions
⅓ teaspoon ground cumin
2 tablespoons fish sauce
½ teaspoon shrimp paste
½ teaspoon crushed red chili or 1 sliced fresh red chili
3 cloves garlic
1 grated piece ginger or galangal (about 1 inch)
½ teaspoon brown sugar
Oil for deep frying
For the Dipping Sauce:
¼ cup Thai fish sauce
½ cup fresh lemon juice
1 thinly sliced chili pepper (Thai chili, Serrano chili or hot red chili)
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 minced garlic clove
Preparation:
Rinse the cod and pat it dry.
Cut it into chunks and put it in a food processor. Mix the shrimp paste with the fish sauce, coconut milk, brown sugar, coriander, chili, and cumin, then add this to the food processor.
Add the green onion, chili, garlic, lime leaves and ginger or galangal and pulse until you get a thick paste. Pat a golf ball-sized piece in your hand to make a fishcake shape and repeat with the rest of the mixture.
Chill the fishcakes on a plate in the refrigerator for 10 minutes.
Heat 1 or 2 inches of oil in the deep fryer. When the oil is hot enough to make a breadcrumb sizzle, fry the fishcakes, in batches, for 30 seconds or a minute.
Lift them up if they stick to the pan. When they are golden brown, drain them on paper towels.
Combine the dipping sauce ingredients and let the mixture stand for 10 minutes. Serve the fishcakes with the dipping sauce.
(Serves 4 as an Appetizer or 2 as an Entree)
Wine Suggestion:
What Wine Goes with Thai Fishcake Recipe
Gewurztraminer, Pinot Gris, or Riesling would be the wine of choice for these fishcakes. The soft floral notes and gentle sweetness are great with the spiciness of the Thai fishcakes recipe. Never drink a tannic wine with Thai food; any wine containing tannin will taste bitter with hot, spicy, or sour food. Also, forget the oaked wines, such as Chardonnay. Neither the oak nor the vanilla in Chardonnay are a suitable match for the exotic spices and herbs found in most Thai recipes.
Photo Description:
This is such a mouthwatering dish, as you can see from the photo. Remember, when making these Thai fishcakes that you need to dry the fish well after chopping it, so it does not fall apart. This is very important if you are using thawed fish, which tends to hold a lot of water. You can add some breadcrumbs or flour to the fish paste if it is too wet. Rinse your hands with cold water whilst forming the fishcakes so it does not stick to you. These Thai fishcakes make a wonderful appetizer or entree.
A Guide to Pinot Gris
Pinot Gris is one of the best wines to choose if you are making a Thai fishcake recipe. This wine is believed to be a mutant from the Pinot Noir grape. The grape is brown, pinkish brown or black and the word "Pinot" which is French for pinecone, might have been applied because the grapes grow in little bunches which look a bit like pinecones. Pinot Gris is a wine, which varies in color depending on the grapes and on the manufacture. It might be copper yellow, golden yellow or pale pink. Pinot Gris grown in Italy is known as Pinot Grigio.
This grape has been cultivated since the Middle Ages and it originates in the Burgundy area of France. It was introduced to Switzerland in the 1300s along with Pinot Noir. From there it went to Hungary and Germany. The grape was popular in the Champagne and Burgundy regions until the 1900s but unreliable crops and poor yields meant it lost favor. Pinot Gris is very similar to Pinot Noir and it is believed that the color difference in the grapes is down to a genetic mutation that happened hundreds of years ago.
California Wine and Pinot Gris
The first American Pinot Gris was planted in 1966 in Oregon and a lot was sold to salmon traders, since Pinot Gris is great with salmon. This might be why it is often recommended for fishcakes recipes. This wine and fish seem to go amazingly well together. The wine was still not that popular until the middle of the 1990s when the big producers entered the market and led big marketing campaigns for it. King Estate Winery is the leading producer of Pinot Gris in the world today and their vineyard has more than three hundred acres of Pinot Gris vines.
There are more than one and a half thousand acres planted in the South and Central Californian coastal areas and the Pinos Gris grown there is often known as Pinot Grigio because it is similar to the Italian version. The grape enjoys cool climates. It matures early with quite high levels of sugar, which means you will get a sweeter wine or a high-alcohol wine if you ferment it until it is dry. This interesting zesty sweetness makes Pinot Gris amazing with a Thai fishcake recipe when most other white wines would taste bitter or too sharp after eating the fishcake.
Pinot Gris Around the World
Pinot Gris from California tends to be light-bodied with a refreshing, sharp flavor and some arugula and pepper notes. In Italy, the wine is light-bodied too but it usually features a pale color and zesty, crisp flavors. German Pinot Gris is fuller bodied and it has a good sweetness to acidity balance. In Alsace, the Pinot Gris is medium or full-bodied and quite flowery and rich tasting. You can age Alsatian Pinot Gris but most other Pinot Gris should be consumed while young. The wine in Oregon is medium-bodied with apple, melon or pear aromas, and a coppery pink color. This wine can be bottled and sold four to twelve weeks after being fermented, making it an "early to market wine."
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