Potatoes and Trout

It's potato harvest time. The first potatoes out of the ground are steamed, dressed with butter, salt and pepper and consumed within thirty minutes of seeing the sun. It's a harvest ritual and the flavour of the newly dug potatoes is savoured sitting on the grass in the sunshine where for five or ten minutes all is right with the world.

The potato is a generous plant and digging up the patch is like finding buried treasure in your garden. There's more underneath that you see on the surface. Now there is 60kgs of potatoes dried, brushed and put to bed. Royal blues snuggle side by side with kipflers, ruby lous, kennebecs, dutch creams and king edwards. A potato for every occasion and another challenge for the cook.



Ruby Lou Potatoes

 Summer seems to have deserted us this year, it's raining and cool and it is time to extract some items from the slowly diminishing pantry and freezer for a meal. A plastic zip lock bag of frozen flaked ocean trout stripped from the left over baked ocean trout we served to friends at Christmas is today's lucky dip item. Together with some freshly dug royal blues it would seem we have the makings for fish cakes.

Cooking from the pantry and freezer is sometimes experimental and intuitive so there are no amounts for this type of dish other than a few guidelines. Use more potato than fish at a ratio of roughly 3:2 (potato:fish) or less fish if you are adding lots of other extras.  You need a nice flourly potato that will crumble easily. Salad potatoes or new baby potatoes won't do the job. Steam or boil the peeled and washed potatoes, drain, allow to cool a little then mash to break up the potato into small pieces. Add the flaked fish. You can easily substitute a tin of salmon or tuna for the ocean trout to make these. Just make sure to drain it well. It's all about using what you have on hand.

Then it's up to your own imagination. Add a combination of the following or anything else you fancy according to your own taste; chopped spring onion/spanish onion/chives - parsley/lemon thyme/lovage/mint - grated lemon zest/lemon myrtle powder* - finely chopped celery/peas/corn kernels/chopped capsicum. It all depends on what you have in the cupboard or fridge.

Season with salt and pepper and add sufficient egg white to bind mixture. Too much will make it wet and it will fall apart, not enough will make it dry and it will fall apart so add carefully. For six large fishcakes I used one small egg white.

Form the mix into cakes (small or large as you prefer). You can even shape them into fish fingers and I promise the kids won't guess you've made the switch. Mix the egg yolk with a little water and then flour, egg and breadcrumb the cakes.  I used panko crumbs because that's what was in the pantry. They are larger and give a crispier coating but you could use any breadcrumbs you like. Fry in a shallow pan of neutral flavoured oil (about 1 to 2cm, less if you like) over a moderate heat, turning when brown.  Drain well on kitchen paper. Keep warm in oven. Serve with home made tartare sauce*, lemon wedges,  a tossed salad and handcut chips if you like. A perfect meal for a cool rainy day and you didn't even have to get in the car and go to the take out.

*I make the tartare sauce using egg mayonnaise, chopped cornichons, plain yoghurt,  a little lemon juice, chopped parsley and mint, with small pieces of chopped lemon flesh or zest stirred through. Seasoned to taste.

*Lemon Myrtle is one of my staple pantry items. It is an Australian Bush Tucker food from a Queensland rainforest tree with dark green lemon-scented leaves. The leaves are used fresh or dried & ground and have a lemon & lime flavour and scent. They can be used with baked fish or chicken dishes, as a lemon tea or in cakes and biscuits.