Feel-good comfort food

As someone who grew up on the East Coast and came into my appreciation of seafood late in life, I am quite proud to be able to say that I can make a good fishcake. For the past two years, I have dabbled in fishcakery, with varying results. The one in the photograph above has been my best yet, and I’m taking to the internet to brag. This fishcake is made with salt cod, a food that has a long history where I come from. Before refrigerators were invented, salting the catch of the day was the most viable method of preservation. It also permitted families to enjoy fish year round, as most fishing was done in the summer months.  Salt fish has been a maritime tradition for years, and it is still readily available in grocery and specialty stores.

A while ago, I asked my Dad for a recipe so I could make my own fishcakes. He gave me a list of the main ingredients, an approximate fish-to-potato ratio, and some suggested additives, if I felt so inclined. Somehow I managed to confuse the carefully dictated instructions, and ended up with cakes so salty they bordered on inedible. I should have tried them myself first, but my poor guests, whose expectations I had raised with promises of a down-home culinary delight, were gracious enough to smile and nod when I asked if they were delicious.

That’s ok, though. It’s a learning process. A few more attempts yielded better results, but nothing outstanding. My goal was to rival the Golden Standard: the droolworthy fishcakes served up at The Knot pub in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. Those things are legendary, locally at least, and I wanted to bring the taste of them back to Montreal to see how they would translate in the land of poutine and foie gras.

Well, they held their own. I made them with the aforementioned salt cod, which was purchased for me by my Dad. On our way to the airport, where I would fly back to my adopted home, my Dad pulled the truck over on the the side of the road and bought me a full pound of the salted fish out of the back of a pick-up. He assured me it was great stuff, and he was right. I soaked the fish overnight, something I had not done before, and it made a monumental difference in the taste of the final product. While the saltiness was still there, it was not the main flavour as it had been in previous editions.

Next, I peeled/cut/boiled the potatoes, chopped an onion, and fried a few long strips of bacon. I mashed the potatoes and onions together, added the bacon bits (maple flavoured, of course), and threw in some dill, chili flakes, and black pepper. After digging my hands in the bowl and carefully shaping the mixture into perfectly rounded little cakes, I pressed each side into bread crumbs to provide an extra crispy outer layer. Then I fried them in the unholy goodness that is bacon fat, and served them piping hot with green tomato chow.  Delicious… if I may say so myself.