INGREDIENTS:

Salmon Fishcakes and Japanese Vegetable Curry

Hmm.  This recipe doesn't have an interesting story behind it.  I just wanted an excuse to cook Japanese karé because it's brown, tasty and has lots of sauce.  

For the uninitiated, Japanese curry is a completely different beast from your Indian or SE Asian curries.  It's thicker, sweeter and more like a stew....if I were to visit a Japanese curry in the zoo, it would be over in the children's section amongst the rabbits and fluffy lambs.  It's a very friendly curry because it doesn't have much of a bite and is very simple to make.

The salmon fishcakes are more fiddly, but are worth the effort.  Fillet of salmon is poached in a savoury milk, then mashed with potato, peas and corn and bound together with a little Kewpie mayonnaise.  Everything is made into little (or big, if you prefer) patties and coated in panko before being shallow fried to a golden brown crispiness.  Besides being quite delicious, they are very efficient transporters for aforementioned curry.

PREPARATION:

SERVINGS: 2 as a main

PREP-to-MOUTH: 45mins

SPECIAL EQUIPMENT: Saucepan, frying pan

• Pour the contents on the bag containing salmon, milk and herbs into a saucepan and bring to a boil.
• Peel potato, cut into cubes and add to another saucepan. Top with cold water and turn heat on high to cook potatoes.

• Cut mushrooms into quarters.
• Peel the carrot and white radish. Cut into large cubes.
• Cut capsicum into cubes.
• Chop garlic and slice onions into quarters.
• Add a little oil to a sauce pan and fry garlic and onions until soft, but not brown.
• Add the other vegetables and stir fry for about 1 minute.
• Addenough water to cover the vegetables and bring to the boil.
• When water is boiling, add the curry roux cubes and stir until dissolved.
  
• Turn the heat down to medium-low and simmer uncovered.

Return to your salmon:

• Check if salmon is cooked - it should be pink all the way through and flake easily.
• Remove from poaching milk and allow to cool before removing the skin.
• Squeeze lemon over salmon, and gently flake with a fork. Set aside.

Prepare the mashed potato:

• When potatoes are cooked (they should pierce easily with a knife), drain and mash.
• Add mayonnaise, a squeeze of lemon, peas and corn and stir well to combine.
• Add salmon and gently fold through.
  
• Season to taste with salt and pepper and then form into patties. You can make a few big ones, and lots of small ones - up to you.

Cover the patties in breadcrumbs:

• Set 3 shallow bowls out in a row and add flour to one, lightly beaten egg to the second and panko breadcrumbs into the third.
• Using your LEFT hand as the WET HAND and your RIGHT hand as your DRY HAND:
1. Dry hand: Place patty in the bowl of flour and turn to coat. Dropflour-coated patty into egg bowl.
2. Wet hand: Turn the patty around to coat in egg and drop into bowl of breadcrumbs.
3. Dry hand: Heap breadcrumbs over the top of the patty and press lightly. turn the patty over and repeat until it's all nicely coated in crumbs.
4. Dry hand: Moce crumbed patty onto a seperate plate
• Repeat with other patties until they're all nicely coated.
• Refrigerate for 15mins.

Fry the patties:

• Pour oil into frying pan and heat until almost smoking.
• Add patties, making sure you don't overcrowd the pan, and fry on both sides until golden brown.