i over-mashed my spuds making fish cakes for tea . . .

[lucysmam]

how can i firm up my fish cakes as they're a sloppy mess atm or will they firm up once left in fridge to chill? thanks

either squeeze them through a sieve to try and get some of the liquid out and then re-form them, hope they firm up in the fridge or start again !

i'll hope they firm up in the fridge in that case mankymummy, not enough fish/spuds to start over & sieving mashed spuds seems a tad extreme to me so will keep fingers crossed instead!

You could put them in the fridge sitting on a couple of tea towels/kitchen roll. This should draw some of the water out of the cakes, firming them up a bit (have used this for similar things...)

they're sat on a tea towel on a plate so hopefully will work. thanks hopefully

Change the menu from fish cakes to stuffed something or other with fish and potatoe and cheese (to help make less sloppy?)? Or is that cheating?

erm, nope not cheating BlingLovin, just what would you stuff with fish? & we have no cheese until shopping delivery friday unless mil would get us some

Oooh - I did fishcakes on Monday for the first time in yonks and they were yummy.

I'm usually v slapdash, but I actaully followed a recipe and my (Nigella's) tips would be some or all of the following:

You could try adding some beaten egg to the recipe.

Deffo put them in the fridge to firm up.

Also I did the flour then eggs then breacrumbs thing, which I think would make a nice crust and hold everything together even if still a bit sloppy.

So I would add some egg to the mixture. Make them into cakes then dip in flour then beaten egg then breadcrumbs. Nigella then say put in fridge for at least 20 mins, then stright from fridge fry quickly on either side then put in oven for 30 mins.

Sorted!

cheers Anchovy, will try the flour, egg, breadcrumbs thing. Was just going to fry them but may pop in the oven after quickly frying after reading that, may hold together better that way as well

Well, potatoe skins for example could work - although I'm assuming you boiled and peeled your potatoes before adding to fish cake, destroying that strategy? If you had a couple of extra potatoes, you can bake them, let the skin get nice and cripsy, scoop out the extra flesh and add it to your fish cake mixture then scoop them back into the potatoe skins - obviously bulging over massively. Then pop left overs (which there will be as you've added the potatoe) into the fridge and reheat for another day - it's actually a favourite in our house, and leftovers are almost better!

Possibly some kind of squash - again, if you have any. Anchovy's breadcrumbs idea is a good one too - bread soaks up liquid?

yup, boiled & peeled spuds. good idea about putting back in skins though, would be tasty!

I have to say I thought the flour/egg/breadcrumb, fry, oven thing was a bit of a fag but it absolutely was worth it because they tasted great.

We had ours with garlicky green beans and home made tomato sauce (although the DCs preferred ketchup

garlicky beans Anchovy?? I'm all ears . . .

not thought about serving with anything other than chips but hm tomato sauce sounds good to me

Top and tail green string beans (we actually had half string beans and half runner beans as Mum had given me all 7 of the runner beans from her garden ). Boil until soft. Drain and run under cold tap to stop them cooking.

Melt butter in pan, add garlic. Soften garlic, turn heat up and add beans - cook for long enough to warm all the way through and serve immediately. (Beauty is that as you cook the beans from cold you can leave as long as you like between the 2 cooking stages).

My DCs (4 and 6) absolutely love these. .

Hm tomato sauce was 3 or 4 tomatoes whizzed up with a clove of garlic (notice a theme emerging here!)and then cooked down a bit with a bit of sugar.

garlic by any chance?

would never have thought to put garlic with string beans, will try them out on oh tonight maybe. cheers

LOL - DH said about the fish cakes "Mmm, those were really nice. I think next time we should add some extra chili and garlic"...

yum! I love chilli n garlic, oh not so keen on chilli though although he tends to just let me get on with it rather than interfere