There is a wonderful affinity between horseradish and smoked fish, I am always amazed how few people take advantage of this pairing, most seem to save the horseradish for their roast beef instead.
Having recently been on the South Beach diet I have been experimenting with alternatives to potatoes in fishcakes and came up with chick peas as a delicious alternative.
These fishcakes are packed with protein and healthy and mood lifting omega oils from the fish and oddles of flavour from the zing of horseradish and lemon.
To cook chickpeas from dried soak them for 24 hours with a teaspoon of baking powder in the water, it makes a massive difference to the final cooking time and tenderness and flavour of the chickpeas.
I have added this recipe to UKTV’s The People’s Cookbook.
Ingredients – Serves 4
450g / 1 lb Cooked Chickpeas
1 lemon – juice and zest
150g / 6oz Smoked Mackerel
3 tsp Horseradish Sauce
3 tsp Capers (optional to taste)
Salt & Pepper
Blitz the chickpeas in a food processor with the lemon juice and zest, the mix should start to clump but not be sticky. Add a little water is necessary.
Discard the mackerel’s skin and lightly break up into small pieces with a fork, removing any bones, fork into the chickpea and lemon mixture along with the horseradish, capers (if used) and salt and pepper.
Divide the mixture into 12 and shape into discs. Shallow fry for 3 to 5 minutes each side, turning gently.
I serve these on a bed of spinach with roasted tomatoes.
Options
Use finely diced preserved lemon in place of the fresh lemon, use water in place of the lemon juice when blitzing the chickpeas, add the lemon along with the fish and other ingredients.
These fishcakes freeze well – defrost before cooking, or bake.
these sound great – do they hold together well? also, have you tried freezing them yet? if so, cook from frozen or defrost first?
They hold together as well as potato fishcakes, but you need to cook them very “gently” in a good heavy pan, and they do slightly fall apart when you turn them over. I shall try a coating of polenta next time.
I have frozen and defrosted and fried them which worked well, and the last ones in the freezer I shall bake from frozen this weekend to see how that works. I’ll update the original post when I know. Cooking from frozen will certainly be easier and require less planning.
I prefer them made with the preserved lemon, but of course not everyone has it to hand or wants to buy some for one recipe – I still have jars of them in the hall cupboard.
i have preserved lemons in too so i think i’d try that first. definitely update us after the freezing/baking – it’s increasingly my preferred option with fishcakes. less smelly.
I’ve made these and they are delightful
So glad you like them Helda.
Typically the first lot I made came out far better than the ones I made for the blog and weighed and measured everything. It is always the way!
Update: I tried baking these from frozen and was not that impressed.
Next step is to bake from defrosted or fresh.
I made these little wonders recently and they were delicious and so simple that even I could manage the task! Am not a fan of capers, so didn’t bother with those, particularly since the lemon and horseradish provided quite enough zing to make ‘em dead pleasurable.
Fabulous!