Fresh Salmon Cakes

You’ll Never Use Canned Salmon Again

Fresh salmon and herbs, easy and tasty

Look up “Salmon Cakes” on any search engine and most of the recipes call for canned salmon. Guilty as charged. These recipes call for lots of ingredients to mask the taste of salmon from a can.  If fresh salmon isn’t available or affordable at the moment, don’t make salmon cakes.

I don’t know what amazes me more, how easy these Fresh Salmon Cakes were to make or how good they tasted. I know one thing. I’m giving the rest of my canned salmon to the cats.

My mother always worked so she didn’t spend too much time in the kitchen.  As long as you could make a good marinara sauce on Sunday, all was forgiven.Things were different when my grandmother came to visit. She would make salmon cakes.  It was a special day when you opened a salmon.  Add some onion, breadcrumbs, spices and fry them up.  Baked salmon cakes were a treat at Morrison’s.  Fresh Salmon?? Never saw it.

Even today you don’t see Salmon Cakes on restaurant menus. compared to the amount of time you see Crab Cakes.  Every body makes crab cakes. So yesterday I made me some FRESH SALMON CAKES.

This recipe is enough for 5 cakes 4 to serve one to play with. It’s easy to double or even triple the recipe. Serve one cake for an appetizer or 2 for a main course with a salad, boom that’s it.

Buy Salmon with the skin on. It’s not that hard to remove the skin and it doesn’t have to be beautiful as you’re going to chop the salmon up anyway. And the crispy salmon skin is a real treat.

• 14oz      Fresh salmon with skin on.
• 1 tbl       Minced parsley
• 1 tbl       Minced red pepper (I used an orange one cause it was there)
• 1 tbl       Chives (cause I had them}
• 1 tbl       Mayonnaise
• 2 tsp      Lemon juice
• ½ tsp     Dijon mustard
• ½  tsp    Salt
• ¼ tsp     Pepper
• ½          Scallion thinly sliced
• ½          Shallot minced
• ¼ cup   Panko bread crumbs or other plain bread crumbs
• ¼  tsp    Ground chipotle chili pepper (optional)

Remove the skin from the salmon. With a sharp knife cut into the salmon at a slight angle careful not to pierce the skin. With the blade against the skin and the fish, start to shave the meat from the skin.

It’s just like shaving if you used a straight razor

Cut the salmon up into 1 inch cubes and place into a food processor. Pulse the salmon in 2 batches to have better control over the consistency. If you don’t have a food processor, chop the salmon up into little pieces.

In a separate mixing bowl combine all the other ingredients. Add the chopped salmon and fold everything together. Use a 1/3 cup measure to portion the salmon mixture. There should be 4 cakes with enough mixture left over to experiment with. Put about a cup of Panko on a plate and gentle pat all sides of the salmon cake to coat. Over a medium high heat fry the cakes on each side until dark brown careful not to burn them.

Serve with lemon wedge and a couple of salmon skin strips (see below). Using tarter sauce is a crime with these delicacies. Save the sauce for your fish sticks.

Crispy Salmon Skin

On a parchment lined baking sheet brush a small amount of sesame oil onto the outside of the salmon skin and sprinkle with sea salt and fresh ground pepper.

Place in a 325° oven for about 25 minutes or until the skin is hard to the touch. Take out of the oven and let cool. You may want to set on a paper towel to absorb some of the fat.

Cut into strips and garnish the salmon cakes.

These delicacies are so simple and so delicious.

Posted by Vinny Verelli

Humorous Motivational Speaker and
Celebrity Chef.