Pike Fish Cakes
Ingredients
3 servings
For the fish cakes
- Pike (whole or part) 1 kg
- Onion 2
- Stale white loaf 1 piece
- Egg 1
- Milk or cream 2–3 tbsp
- Vegetable oil 3 tbsp
- Salt, black pepper, dried aromatic herbs to taste
For the side and serving
- Beetroot 1
- Carrot 1
- Fresh herbs, grated horseradish to taste
- Butter optional
Step-by-step recipe
Pike mince
To make pike fish cakes, you don’t need a pike of any particular size. Pike can be small, large or very large, so part of a fish, the tail for example, will do just fine. The tail actually has plenty of flesh, but because of all the bones it’s quite hard to cook anything from it. For mince, though, the tail is perfect. For more pike meat, scale up all the ingredients proportionally.
Scale and gut the pike, cut off the head and fins.
Use a sharp knife to cut out all the fillet, then remove the skin — you won’t need it. The head, fins and bones can go into a fish stock for risotto or a homemade fish soup. It’s worth saying that pike gives a very good yield of flesh.
Peel the onion and chop it finely. Heat 1 tbsp vegetable oil in a sauté pan and fry the onion until deep golden. Whatever you do, don’t overcook the onion, or the dish will taste burnt.
Pass the pike fillet twice through a meat grinder with a fine plate. Any small bones in the fillet won’t go through the plate — they collect in front of it, so almost none end up in the pike mince. This remarkable habit of the meat grinder to catch whole fish bones is very handy.
Mix the mince with the fried onion. Wait until the onion has cooled, though, or the hot oil will cook the fish. Add the egg to the mince, season with salt and pepper to taste, and add 1–2 pinches of dried aromatic herbs typical of Mediterranean or Italian cuisine.
Mix the mince until smooth. Add 2–3 tbsp milk or cream and mix thoroughly again.
Recipes usually suggest adding a soaked white loaf to the mince, but that way you’ll hardly ever “guess” the right consistency. So after the milk it’s better to add stale white loaf or white bread grated on the finest grater. Store-bought breadcrumbs are best avoided because of their poor quality. A French baguette is ideal.
Grate the stale loaf on the finest grater. Add the breadcrumbs in small portions, mixing the mince at the same time, until it almost stops sticking to your hands and is very soft. Keep some of the crumbs for coating.
Refrigerate the mince for 30 mins.
Vegetables for the side
Bake the beetroot and carrot in the oven or microwave until tender. Once cool, peel the vegetables and cut them into large slices or rounds 5–6 mm thick.
Shaping and frying the fish cakes
Shape the fish mince into patties, wetting your hands with water. The size is up to you, but elongated patties about the length of your index finger are easiest to cook.
Place the patties on a damp plate. Roll them in the rest of the grated white bread.
Heat 2 tbsp vegetable oil in a frying pan and fry the fish cakes until golden brown. There’s no need to cook them through.
Baking with vegetables
Grease a ceramic or glass baking dish with the remaining vegetable oil. Lay the fish cakes in it and put the dish into an oven preheated to 200 °C for 20 mins.
Arrange the sliced carrot and beetroot around the fish cakes and drizzle the vegetables with a little vegetable oil or brush them with it. Return the dish with the fish cakes and vegetables to the oven for another 15 mins. That’s usually quite enough, but if in doubt you can bake them longer. In that case, keep an eye on the fish cakes so they don’t burn.
Serving
Put the fish cakes on plates and use the vegetables as a side. Add fresh herbs and grated horseradish.
Serve the pike fish cakes with baked vegetables piping hot. If you like, drizzle them with melted butter.
Calories and macros
370 kcal
Serving ≈ 230 g
- Protein39 g44% of kcal
- Fat17 g44% of kcal
- Carbs10 g12% of kcal
100 g162 kcalProtein 17.4 gFat 7.7 gCarbs 4.6 g
Calculated from the recipe ingredients, excluding salt and spices. Data: USDA and Matvaretabellen.
How did you like this recipe?
To Get It Right
Which pike to use
A pike weighing 1–1.5 kg is just right for fish cakes, and if the fish is large, part of it, such as the tail, is enough. Don’t throw away the head, fins and bones: they make a fish stock for risotto or a homemade fish soup.
The onion matters most
For pike fish cakes, fry the onion until deep golden, but never overcook it, or the fish cakes will taste burnt. And add it to the mince only once it has cooled: hot oil will cook the fish.
With carrot
A reader suggests grating 1 fresh carrot on a fine grater and adding it to the pike mince — it’s tasty.
Have your own trick for this recipe?
Questions and answers
How long to bake pike fish cakes in the oven?
About 35 minutes at 200 °C: the pan-fried fish cakes bake on their own for 20 minutes, then the vegetables go around them for another 15 minutes. If in doubt, bake a little longer, but keep an eye on them so they don’t burn.
How long to fry pike fish cakes in a pan?
In this recipe, only until golden brown — they aren’t cooked through in the pan. They become done and tender in the oven.
What makes pike fish cakes juicy?
2–3 tbsp milk or cream and fried onion. There’s no pork fat in this recipe — the mince turns out very soft without it.
What to add to fish mince so the patties don’t fall apart?
An egg and breadcrumbs from a stale white loaf grated on the finest grater. Add the crumbs a little at a time until the mince almost stops sticking to your hands. A soaked loaf works worse: it’s hard to get the consistency right.
How to make pike fish cakes without bones?
Pass the fillet through a meat grinder with a fine plate twice. Small bones don’t go through the plate — they collect in front of it, so almost none end up in the mince.