Fish cakes

We also call them fish meat balls

This is actually a classical Danish dish. I was taught how to make it by my grandfather, whose ways of cooking was one of the very best things he left me. A fine man altogether... well, that's an other story.

Fish meat balls... known as fish cakes to most people... most Danes consider fish meat balls something you buy in the local supermarket. They're packed four and four in plastic, and look like plastic, but don't taste like plastic. Their taste reminds you more of the smell on a fishing peer than the smell of fresh fish. The dough used to make them is extremely finely ground, completely hiding the structure of whatever little fish there might be in them. No wonder so few people like them.

My fish meat balls are made from fresh, gound or chopped fish, and taste like they should: of fresh fish.
You need:

• 0.5 kilogram (1 lb.) of lean fish fillet without bones. Cod or similar white fish is best, but you can also use trout or pike or mix species.
• One large or two small eggs
• One large onion
• Cream or milk (approx. 1 cup)
• A bit of water
• Flour (a few table spoons)
• Salt, pepper, nutmeg
• Butter and/or olive oil for frying

1. You can grind the fish in a grinder - only once! Nowadays I rarely do this. I chop the fish with a sharp knife in stead
2. Put the fish in a bowl
3. Grind or chop the onion too or - even better - shred with a shredder into the bowl
4. Add a teaspoon of salt, some pepper and half a teaspoon of ground nutmeg and stir
5. Add the egg(s) and stir
6. Add a bit of the flour and stir
7. Add a bit of water - a couple of tablespoons
8. Add all of the cream or milk and stir
9. Add a bit more flour at a time, till the dough is suitable for setting like meat balls on a frying pan
10. Let the stuff rest for 30 minutes
11. Add more flour or milk if needed
12. Heat a frying pan with mixed butter and oil on it
13. Form the meat balls in one hand using a large table spoon.
14. Set the meat balls in the hot butter
15. Cook them for approx. 5 minutes on each side over fairly high heat. They must be brown and have a crust
16. Serve with potatoes (mashed are very good), melted butter and sauce de remoulade

You can vary this recipe in many ways. The easy one is mixing the species of fish. Use cod as the main ingredient, but add a bit of roughyl chopped trout or salmon. It's looks beautiful, and tastes very well. You might stir in some chopped leek too. the green/pink/white of these meat balls is a feat to the eyes.

In the winter you often get cod with egg sacks in them. Remove the eggs carefully from the sacks and mix carefully into the finished dough based on pure cod. It looks nice and tastes very well.
These meat balls also taste very well cold, vut into slices on rye or wheat bread.