Salmon Potato Cakes

It’s three days after Thanksgiving and your family is tired of leftovers.  And you STILL have mashed potatoes.  Here’s a recipe that will fool them into thinking they are getting an entirely new dish, while you get to empty the refrigerator just a little bit more.   This is so tasty that it is worth making extra potatoes the next time, so you will have leftovers.

Ingredients

Leftover mashed potatoes – weighing three times as much as your salmon – Today, I had 540g or 19 oz.

Salmon filet  - weighing a third as much as your potatoes – so I bought a salmon filet of 180g or 6.3 oz.

Handful of green onion tops (with a little extra for garnish)

50g or 1 3/4 oz sharp cheddar cheese

1 egg

Bread crumbs

Sea salt

Black pepper

Cayenne pepper

Olive oil

Method

Salt and pepper the salmon filet and gently pan-fry it with a little olive oil, in a non-stick skillet.  Put the lid on and keep the fire low.

You are going to get some color but you don’t want a hard crust.

Turn it after about five minutes and cook on the other side for another five minutes, still covered.  

Turn the fire off and let it rest, covered, in the pan while you get your other ingredients ready.

Chop the onion tops very, very finely.   Grate the cheddar cheese.  Lightly beat your egg.

Remove the salmon from the pan and, using two forks, flake the meat off of the skin.  (Some people throw the skin away.  I pop it back into the non-stick skillet and fry till it is crispy, crispy, crispy.  Then I eat it.  Crunch, crunch, crunch.  Delicious.)

Put the mashed potato into a large mixing bowl and fluff it around with a fork.  Add the onion, cheese and salmon.   Add the egg and mix well.  

You can add pinches of salt and black pepper at this point but remember that your mashed potatoes were already seasoned, as was your salmon.   But do give the mixture a good sprinkle of cayenne pepper and mix again.

Sprinkle a plate with breadcrumbs.  Carefully shape a big spoonful of the mixture into a patty.   Put it in the breadcrumbs.  

Using a spatula, push breadcrumbs up the sides of the patty and then flip it gently over to coat the other side. 

Meanwhile, wipe out your non-stick skillet and add a little more olive oil.  Put it on a medium heat. 

Still using the spatula, slip the patty into the skillet.

Form the rest of your patties the same way and gently slip them into the skillet.  These are quite soft and may mash up a little when you try to turn them so cook on a medium to low heat until a good crust forms on the bottom.  Possibly 7-10 minutes. 

If your pan is too small to maneuver in easily, you can remove one patty before trying to turn the others, as I did.

Flip gently and cook until you have a crust on the other side.  You can serve these with a side vegetable or a salad.  Either would be delicious.  Enjoy!

(Despite the photos, this actually made six good-sized patties.  I ate the first two before I took the pictures.)

Enjoy! 

Parmesan Chicken Breasts with Crispy Prosciutto

This recipe is especially for my dear friend, Belinda, who apparently has a surplus of boneless, skinless chicken breasts in her freezer.   It is one of my favorites from Jamie Oliver’s Ministry of Food, published in the US as Food Revolution, where, for some bizarre reason, the Parmesan was omitted from the recipe.  I can’t imagine why.

Ingredients

2-3 sprigs of fresh thyme

30g or 1 oz Parmesan cheese

2 skinless chicken breasts

Freshly ground black pepper

1 lemon

4-5 slices of prosciutto or Parma ham – about 70g or 2.5 oz

Olive oil

Method

Pick the thyme leaves off the stalks.   If there are some very fine stalks which just break when you try to remove the leaves, just chop those up and group with the leaves. Grate your Parmesan.

Lay some cling film on a cutting board and place the breasts on the plastic.  Carefully score the underside of the chicken breasts in a criss-cross fashion with a small knife.

Season with a little pepper (You don’t need salt as the prosciutto and Parmesan are quite salty).  Lay your breasts next to each other and sprinkle over most of the thyme leaves.

Grate a little lemon zest over them.

Put half of the Parmesan on each breast.

Lay two prosciutto slices on each chicken breast, overlapping them slightly. If there happens to be a fifth slice in your package, as mine had, cut it in half and put one piece on each breast on top of the other two slices.

Put a square of plastic wrap over each breast and give them a few really good bashes with the bottom of a saucepan until they are about ½ inch or 1cm thick.

This  is the fun part!  Give it a jolly good bash. 

Put a frying pan over a medium heat. Remove the plastic wrap and carefully transfer the chicken breasts, prosciutto-side down, into the pan.

Drizzle over some olive oil. Cook for three minutes on each side, turning halfway through.

Either serve the chicken breasts whole or cut them into thick slices and pile them on a plate.   Serve with lemon wedges for squeezing over and a sprinkle of the few leftover thyme leaves. 

Enjoy!

Pan-roasted Asparagus with Lemon and Butter

This is the easiest recipe when you are in a hurry.   Fresh asparagus require very little cooking and lemon, butter, sea salt and black pepper make the simplest of seasonings which allow the vegetable to shine.  You will want to eat these one at a time with your fingers.  Then lick them clean.

Ingredients

450g or 1 lb fresh asparagus

Juice of 1/4 lemon

20g or 1 1/2 tablespoons butter

Sea salt

Black pepper

Olive oil

Method

Cut the woody ends off of the asparagus, usually at least 2-3 inches or 5-6 cm.

Heat a non-stick skillet to roasting, and throw in the asparagus.  Drizzle with olive oil.  Leave the asparagus to brown, stirring occasionally.  

This will take just a few minutes if your fire is high enough and your pan is hot enough.  Sprinkle with sea salt and a good couple of grinds of fresh black pepper.  Just keep tossing them around.

When the asparagus is nicely caramelized and brown in places, turn your fire off and add the butter.  

Squeeze the lemon juice into the hot pan and stir the asparagus around until the butter melts.  Taste one and add more salt if necessary.  Serve!  This goes great with the Parmesan Chicken Breasts with Crispy Prosciutto.

Enjoy!