I love fish cakes, remembering the traditional fish and chip shop style fish cake with haddock sandwiched between ‘door wedges’ of potato, battered and deep-fried in oodles of grease. We have certainly come a long way in producing some magnificent variations on the classic style and here is my favourite.

Serves 4

Ingredients

• 900g potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks
• 600g Mackenzie’s Oak Roast Salmon
• 25g butter
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh dill
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh tarragon
• Salt/ black pepper
• 50g plain flour seasoned with salt and pepper
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 200g fine fresh breadcrumbs
• Oil for deep fat frying

Instructions

1. Cook the potatoes in boiling salted water until tender, drain well. Add butter, mash till smooth. (If you wish add a small amount of milk to aid the mashing but it is important to keep the mixture quite dry or the fish cakes will not hold together)
2. Break Mackenzie’s Oak Roast Salmon into flakes, discard any skin.
3. Add the salmon and herbs to the mashed potato and gently mix together.
4. Season with salt and black pepper as required  (I defy most people to restrict their tastings to just one small spoonful  at this point!)
5. Shape the mix into 8 circles about 2.5cm thick (1”).
6. You can proceed to the next step but I find that they handle and fry much better if chilled, so ideally cover with cling film and chill for at least half an hour.
7. Dip the fish cakes into the seasoned flour then@the beaten egg then@the breadcrumbs – press the breadcrumbs gently but@firmly onto the fish cakes ensuring that the whole@area is completely covered.@
8. Heat the oil in a pan (do not fill the pan more than half full) to 180C or 350F (a good test for this is to pop a cube of bread into the oil, if the bread browns in approx one and a half minutes then the oil is ready.
9. Deep fry the fish cakes in small batches – do not over fill the pan.  Takes approx 4 minutes.
10. Remove fish cakes from pan and drain on kitchen roll, pop fish cakes on i.e a wire  tray and place in a warm oven – this ensures that the fish cakes do not become soggy whilst you fry the remaining ones.

Serving suggestions:-

Of course the classic chip would be an ideal partner but my favourite is with a crisp green salad  a caper dressing and the whole accompanied by a glass of chilled white wine.

Caper dressing

Mix together:- Juice of 1 lemon and the zest of half a lemon, 3fl oz good olive oil, 3 tablespoons of capers (rinsed and drained and finely chopped), 1 clove of garlic-crushed, 1 tablespoon of chopped chives, 1 tablespoon of chopped fennel.

Season to taste and generously dress a green salad.