Salmon Burgers

After last week's disappointing fish recipe, I may have been tempting fate with another. However, I bought three pounds of tilapia fish and Costco has not been carrying the frozen fishburgers that I like so much. These two forces, along with the fact that I am making myself learn to like fish more, encouraged me to try this recipe Mark Bittman's salmon burgers.

Those with good reading comprehension will note that the recipe is for salmon burgers and I have tilapia fish. My feeling is that, if I could afford salmon, I wouldn't need to make it into a burger. I figured that the main difference would be that the tilapia wouldn't have the same flavor profile as the salmon and fish should be fish.

Though many people in the comments talked about adding an egg to the mix, I wanted to give it a chance as it was. I didn't know if the burger would hold together well without an egg, but I figured that worst that could happen would be that I'd end up with scrambled fish and have to eat a fish sloppy Joe. That would be messy, but it probably wouldn't be bad.

Other than using tilapia, I cut the recipe in half because I don't have a regular food processor. I have to use a tiny attachment that goes with my immersion blender. I also doubled the capers (left the amount the same while cutting the rest of the recipe in half) and put in about half a teaspoon of garlic salt. I did this because of the less flavorful nature of tilapia relative to salmon, but also because I love capers.

It turns out that, when you process tilapia into a paste, it gets incredibly sticky. I was glad to have a burger press to form these and lining it with plastic wrap stopped the sticking in the non-stick press. I was stunned at just how "gluey" it was. I had a terrible time getting it off of the little food processor that I used and had to scrub the seams with a brush several times to get fish goo out of them. I should mention that my fish was still partially frozen when I chopped and processed it. I wanted it to be this way so that it wouldn't turn to must. The filets are very thin and fragile and this did stop it from being pulverized. I would repeat this same semi-frozen processing if I do this again.

This made three burgers which was one burger more than it was "supposed" to. The patties were very large and it was more than enough fish. I served it on homemade bread with a very small amount of  mayonnaise and on a bed of red onion, avocado, and tomato. Cooking it in butter yielded a beautiful browned exterior. I was careful not to cook it too long, however, because the burger was thin and I didn't want it to be rubbery or dried out.

The interior was nice and tender and it was flavorful in multiple ways without being overbearingly any one flavor. The fish was present, as were the capers, the scallions, and the garlic. I didn't salt the burger after I cooked it because I salted the mixture very well and it was perfect. I was incredibly impressed with how this turned out in all respects and expect to make it again and again. In fact, this one is likely to get added to my recipe box as I think it can be made with any type of fish and is better than commercially prepared burgers.

Fish Poached in Buttermilk

Since I learned the benefits of poaching fish in milk, I've been researching other recipes which cook it in this fashion. I learned that a lot of them include a second step after cooking the fish in which the poaching liquid is reduced and used as a sauce. Given the magical properties of buttermilk to tenderize meat, I decided to try a recipe that poached the fish in buttermilk.

The recipe was not without it's issues as far as I was concerned. First of all, half of it was prepping vegetables to serve the fish with. I didn't really need guidance on side dishes so I skipped the first part and focused on the fish preparation. I also am not a big fan of dill so I used parsley instead. This is how my dish turned out looking:

It actually looks fine, despite being super pale overall. I used tilapia fish because that was what I had on hand. I'm very careful with the timing on cooking it because I know it can over-cook in a heartbeat. The texture of the fish was very tender and it flaked well.

The problem was with the sauce. I did reduce it a bit despite the recipe not asking me to do so. I wanted something a bit thicker than just plain milk, though I knew adding butter in would add some texture to it at a later stage. Despite my reducing the sauce a bit and adding in butter, it was still very thin. I added in lemon juice and gave it a taste. It seemed tangy and almost cheesy (maybe from the buttermilk) just out of the blender. I made the fish and sauce on the early side of the day because I had other things to do. I put both in the refrigerator for later consumption figuring that the flavors might come together more as time went by.

Unfortunately, what seemed flavorful at that point tasted like little more than mildly flavored slightly condensed milk several hours later. The sauce was just so bland and uninteresting that I threw the rest out. I was very disappointed. The other pieces of fish that I poached were not embellished with the milk sauce. Despite being poached in milk, they carried none of the flavor of it so I folded them into Asian rice dishes with soy sauce, ginger, garlic and chilis.

This recipe was not only a bust for me, but it put me off any sort of recipe that uses the poaching liquid as a sauce. This just did not do it for me and, while I will absolutely continue to poach fish in milk (or buttermilk), I think I'm done sampling this type of recipe. 

Nova Scotia Fish Cakes

During much of my life, fish has been off the menu. It's only in the last year that I've taken to regularly eating fish. It might be menopause, or it could be that, once people stopped telling me I should do it, I decided to give it a chance. I'm not a stubborn person, but I prefer to try things based on curiosity rather than being pushed. It doesn't help that those who recommended fish only pushed it for health reasons and really didn't describe the experience in any other terms. If you can't tell me that it has some sort of textural delight or flavor potential, then I'll stick to other, cheaper, healthy dishes.

It also did not help that I was in Japan and most of the fish I was told to eat was raw. I really dislike the texture of raw fish and I was raised to think uncooked flesh of any sort would result in dire healthy results. And, of course, my mother's home cooking of fish was not especially impressive. It usually meant a carp or trout wrapped in foil and cooked with lemon, salt, and pepper until it had had all of the textural delights steamed out of it.

I've tried to overcome the disadvantages of my youth in this regard. Pollock has been helpful in this regard as its the least "fishy" fish. It's also cheap. I've been trying it in various preparations and have generally been pleased. I had not folded it into a recipe which wasn't simply a way to make a whole piece of fish so the Nova Scotia Fish Cakes recipe caught my eye.

This was my first experience cooking fish in milk. I did as instructed, but I didn't know why this was of value until I did a little research. It's supposed to remove the "fishy" smell and taste and restore fish to a fresher flavor and impart a better texture. I do believe this worked and was effective. The fish did taste good without being overly "fishy" (which is an unpleasant taste  and odor that comes from the aging of the fish).

Since the recipe called for any white fish, my stash of frozen pollock which was a little over 14 oz. fit the bill well. I soaked it in milk as instructed, though some of the fish was partially frozen and it froze the milk so I wonder if that may have undermined the soaking effects. I also cooked it in milk, but for a very short time (about 4 minutes) because my fillets were very thin. This worked well as the fish didn't seem rubbery or overdone when I flaked it.

For the potato, I weighed it out to be sure to get the proportions correct and I used a ricer to mash it. This allowed for a much more even mashing than using a fork and I was pleased with how uniform it was when I made the cakes. I am dubious, however, about boiling the potato as part of the cooking and wondered if steaming my not have been a better idea. When I prepared the cakes for frying, they were delicate and it was hard to keep them from falling apart in the egg mixture. I had to roll them back into shape to some extent when I applied the bread crumbs. One cake broke in half, but cooked fine anyway. My best guess is that making smaller "appetizer" size cakes would have made this less likely, but I was prepping these for an entree. Mine looked like this:

The original potato patty was actually round. The shape change occurred because of the softness of the patty and the need to roll it around in the bread crumbs (I used panko) to keep it together and firm it up after the egg coating.

In terms of how this was, it was actually pretty great. The outside is crispy and not too oily. The inside is tender and soft and there's just enough flavor variation to keep things interesting without overwhelming the potato and fish flavors (which can be faint). I would make these again in a heartbeat if I had the fish on hand. I modified the recipe little, but the one thing I did do was add a 1/8 teaspoon of Old Bay seasoning. I'm not sure that it made any difference given how tiny the amount was, but I might throw in 1/4 teaspoon next time to see if it has an impact. These were very flavorful on their own because of the scallions, salt, and pepper, but I don't think adding more complexity would do any harm.

The only problem is that this makes a lot and I am the only person in the house eating them. My batch made five cakes and I cooked them over two days. I allowed the leftovers to cool and froze them immediately. My hope is that fast freezing (while the coating was still crisp) and then cooking them still frozen and in a toaster oven will keep the delightful crispy exterior's charms intact.

Update: Freezing them (in plastic wrap) shortly after they'd full cooled and then re-heating in them in the toaster oven straight from the freezer worked very well. It retained the crispy exterior and tender interior. This is a winner for long-term use and a way to avoid process breaded products and make your own.