Fish Monday - Salmon cakes

It's Monday once again, and that means fish!

Here's the thing-- I have a problem.  Actually, two problems. First, we have exactly one nearby source of  fish, and that's the local supermarket.  Which isn't horrible-- almost everything is frozen, and fishing freezers are much better than they used to be, so as long as you don't mind "previously frozen" on all of the tags it's reasonable.  But at the same time, they're just the local supermarket, you know? I'm only going to trust them so far-- I have gotten improperly stored fish from them before, that was out in the case either too long or too warm, and had to be thrown out.  And this leads me to the second issue, which is that for some reason I have a great deal of difficulty cooking salmon to the right degree of doneness.  It's almost always either over or under, and for fish you don't trust, even a little under isn't good.  And a little over is sawdust.  So I've decided to give up on the "better" types that they sometimes offer-- the wild caught sockeye, for example.   It's just too much money to throw away if I leave it in the pan for 40 seconds too long and ruin it.  But if I'm going to only buy the cheap farmed stuff, I need to make it tastier.

Which brings us neatly to last night's culinary efforts, a recipe from Cooks Illustrated for salmon cakes that makes even the farmiest salmon tasty AND insulates against over/under cooking!

First, mix breadcrumbs, fresh parsley, one chopped scallion, one chopped shallot, some mayo, some mustard, some lemon juice, a little salt and pepper and cayenne in a bowl.  Then cut your salmon fillets (about a pound) into large chunks, and feed the chunks (in batches) into the food processor, pulsing just a few times to make large shreds.  You just want to break it up, not turn it into salmon mousse.  Mix the salmon into the breadcrumb mix.  Portion the mix out into little cakes, coat in breadcrumbs, and fry over medium/medium-high heat for 2-3 minutes per side.  Serve with lemon or tartar sauce.

It's definitely a bit fiddlier than just coating the salmon with pesto/herbs/spices and slapping it under the broiler, but it's damn tasty, and possibly even doable on a weeknight.  With a bit of practice, I could probably slap it together in under 45 minutes, especially since I just realized while I was typing this that I could have minced the scallion and the shallot in the food processor and saved a bit of time there.