And Finally, The Last Of The Fish For Cindy And Me - Pacific Cod Cakes And New England Clam Chowder

After trying Pacific Cod a couple of times and not caring for the chewiness of it, I decided to do something different with my three remaining pieces and make them into fish cakes.  I used a recipe that I got from Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives that was courtesy of a restaurant and since it was, I had to reduce it by a factor of four to get the one below.

Pacific Cod Cakes - Adapted from Food Channel

Ingredients:

Salt

20 oz cod fillets

12 oz Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and quartered

3/4 cup diced onions

Canola oil, for pan-frying

1 cup sour cream

¼ cup diced fresh chives

¼ cup Dijon mustard

¼ cup chopped scallions

2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce

¾ tsp Old Bay seasoning

¾ tbsp tsp garlic powder

¾ tbsp white pepper

¼ lb panko breadcrumbs (all I had was seasoned with Parmesan)

Butter & oil, for pan-frying

Directions:

Add some salt, a bay leaf, a lemon wedge and black pepper to a pot of boiling water. Add the cod fillets and boil for 10 to 12 minutes. Remove the cod from the water and refrigerate for 1 hour then chop pretty fine – season with S&P.

Boil the potatoes in the same water until tender. Drain, remove bay leaf and lemon then mash and cool completely -  season with S&P.

Pan-fry the onions in a little bit of canola oil until soft. Set aside to cool – season with S&P.

In a large bowl, mix together the chilled cod, mashed potatoes, fried onions, sour cream, chives, mustard, scallions, Worcestershire sauce, Old Bay seasoning, garlic powder, white pepper and 1 tablespoon salt (I added none since I’d been seasoning the components). Add the breadcrumbs and mix to combine.

Form the mixture into 4-ounce cakes.  I didn’t weigh them but used an egg ring mold and they held their shape very well.

Heat some oil and 1 tablespoon butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Pan-fry the cakes in batches until golden brown, 3 to 4 minutes per side; add some additional oil and butter between batches as needed.

The Verdict:

I mixed everything a few hours ahead of time, covered in plastic and left the bowl on the counter but when I tasted it, I thought it had way to much Worcestershire Sauce and I wasn’t sure if the finished product would be worth eating.  As it turned out, they were delicious and no flavors stood out too much although I’d use a little less worsey next time.  They were so flavorful you could hardly taste the fish but we both loved them and Cindy raved about them.  Would you believe the fish was still a little chewy so I guess it needs some time in a food processor to make the pieces even smaller. 

I’m a little surprised Cindy and I haven’t grown scales or a shell but we sure enjoyed our three week long seafood-a-thon and we managed to cook all but three pieces of the fish from the freezer that I wanted to use up.

And for breakfast the next morning with an added slice of cheese and I broke the egg removing it - still delicious.

Clam Chowder

Bev had been wanting me to make chowder to use some of the case of hard-to-find baby canned clams we had on hand so I made it for her cold, rainy return home day.  

I used our usual recipe for Ina Garten’s East Hampton Clam Chowder  and it was delicious as always BUT it was gritty so next time I'll rinse the clams and strain the broth from the clam cans.

How about those Hoosiers winning the Big 10 football championship for the first time in 80 years.  Their coach is an ex WVU (my Alma Mater) quarterback - guess they should have hired him when Indiana did.

Photos can be slightly enlarged by clicking on them and the blue words are links.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

12/4 & 12/5/25 event dates