Food Candy - Easy Salmon Cakes

I have two more food candy recipes to share. Next up is one of my absolute favorite meals: salmon cakes. Seriously. I'm not lying. I love them. Loooooooove them. And anyone who knows me, knows that I'm not the biggest fan of seafood. Shrimp, lobster, crab, clams, oysters, squid, octopus, and most types of fish are not within my food vocabulary. But a few years ago, I started trying new seafood dishes and have discovered that there are some creatures from the sea that I actually do enjoy like salmon, sea bass, halibut, tuna, and tilapia. I really love this recipe because 1) it's super quick and easy, 2) I almost always have the ingredients on hand, and 3) I find it delightfully delicious.

The recipe I use is from Eating Well's Serves Two cookbook, which is perfect for just David and me. This recipe makes 4 salmons cakes, two apiece. If you want to make 4 servings (or eight salmon cakes), you can use the recipe at EatingWell.com. The ratios are slightly different. So here are our cast of ingredients and the recipe:

Easy Salmon Cakes

3 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 cup finely chopped onion
1/3 cup finely diced celery
1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley
7 ounces canned salmon, drained
1 egg white
3/4 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1 cup fresh whole-wheat breadcrumbs
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
1 lemon

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Coat a baking sheet with cooking spray.
2. Heat 1 teaspoon oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add onion and celery; cook, stirring, until softened, about 3 minutes. Stir in parsley; remove from the heat.
3. Place salmon in a medium bowl. Flake apart with a fork; remove any bones and skin. Add egg and mustard; mix well. Add the onion mixture, breadcrumbs and pepper; mix well. Shape the mixture into 4 patties, about 2 1/2 inches wide.
4. Heat remaining 1 teaspoon oil in the pan over medium heat. Add 4 patties and cook until the undersides are golden, 2 to 3 minutes. Using a wide spatula, turn them over onto the prepared baking sheet.
5. Bake the salmon cakes until golden on top and heated through, 10 to 15 minutes. Serve salmon cakes with sauce and lemon wedges.

A few notes about the ingredients: I generally use Bumble Bee's 5 ounce can of skinless and boneless pink salmon. The recipe calls for a 7 ounce can but I find the 5 ounce can to be sufficient. Plus, it's so worth your time to buy canned salmon that is already boneless and skinless because it takes forever to pick all the tiny bones out of the other ones. Also, for a cup of fresh breadcrumbs, I generally use two slices of whole-wheat bread. I discard the crusts and pulse the bread in my food processor to get fine breadcrumbs. I know some people complained of the salmon cakes being a little on the dry side and recommend using less than the stated amount of breadcrumbs, but I find the amount to be just right. (But I think I like drier fish than most people.)

After all the ingredients are mixed, you form four salmon cakes on a skillet set at medium heat. After baking just one side, you transfer the salmon cakes to a pan, baked side up, and stick it in the oven for 10 minutes.

Within half an hour, you're ready to eat your salmon cakes. Eating Well says you should serve them with a creamy dill sauce (the recipe is on their website) but we only use fresh lemon juice and I find that that is plenty delicious. I often serve them with rosemary roasted potatoes. Mmmm. So delicious. Even if you don't like seafood or don't know how to cook fish, you should try this recipe. It's very easy and hard to mess up. And I'm not lying when I say it's really good. So good, you'll forget that you're eating salmon.