I went to my fish guy in Newfoundland down at the Fish Depot on Duckworth Street. He’s my go-to guy for sustainable fish in St. John’s. He actually doesn’t like Atlantic salmon. It’s farmed, and most importantly, tastes nothing like wild. He doesn’t like wild, though, since you can’t sell wild Atlantic salmon because the stocks are too low. He can also tell you how all the Arctic char coming down from Labrador (the closest thing you’ll find to wild salmon) was fished. And that it was flash frozen, making it almost as good as fresh.
So when I went in to his shop and told him I was making fish cakes and needed white flesh fish, he said cod. And I said, “No.”
First, I think cod tastes like nothing, which is fine for fish cakes because that’s the point. But I thought it was pretty unsustainable. He said all his cod was caught sustainably and there’s more than enough cod in the waters where it was caught. It wasn’t trawled. And it wasn’t bought from the Spanish…
Traditionally, in Newfoundland cod cakes are made with salt cod, soaked overnight (or two nights) in multiple changes of water. When it’s fresh you make it with fresh, but now it’s so standard (and Newfoundlanders have such a taste for salt) that it’s always salt cod.
I’m not salt cod expert, but I asked my guy how many times to change the water and how long to soak the fish. 3 changes of water, soak it overnight, he said. And that’s what I did. Way, way, way too salty. I used this recipe from Yotam Ottolenghi and left out the salt. Were it not for the beetroot relish, this would have been unbearable. Instead, I ate the relish with a fork and occasionally broke off a nugget of salt cod cake for a hit of salt. Note: If you think you won’t like the relish, make it and then tell me you don’t like it. I dare you.
My other error was not grinding my gluten-free breadcrumbs fine enough. I toasted the bread and stuck it in the blender, but there was too much humidity to turn it into coarse crumbs. So use a good recipe and make sure the crumbs are fine enough so the cod cakes don’t fall apart. Also, feel free to make the original recipe using fresh (sustainable) cod (good luck finding it), or haddock, hake or (if you want to splurge) halibut. If the sole or porgy in your area (or whiting or perch in Ontario) is sustainable, those work too.
If the crumbs aren’t fine enough the cakes tend to fall apart, which is a problem if you want to make them pretty. If you don’t care that they like that fish hash, knowing that they’ll still be delicious, then don’t worry about the fineness of the crumbs. Mine fell apart. I was upset with myself. I ate a lot of relish to make myself feel better. It didn’t work. Everyone still liked the dish, though, god love ’em.
My only other changes to the recipe were leaving out the dill and tarragon and doubling the mint. Hard to find the former two in Newfoundland in April, turns out. And I made the relish with almond milk and a dash of lemon juice instead of soured cream. I used a little less milk than sour cream to not make it too runny. Don’t dare skip the horseradish. Actually, I ended up doubling it to add more punch. Otherwise the relish would have been too sweet.
Leave a Reply