Thai Fish Cakes

📝 Ingredients

• 400 g frozen hake fillets (thawed overnight in the fridge)
• 1 egg
• 2 tbsp red curry paste (about 40 g)
• 1 tbsp fish sauce + 1 tsp caster sugar
• 1 tbsp cornflour
• 100 g green beans
• 4 makrut lime leaves
• 2 tbsp sunflower oil (½ for your hands, 1 ½ for frying)
• 180 g jasmine rice + 270 ml water
• 1 cucumber (about 300 g) + 1 shallot
• 3 tbsp rice vinegar + 1 tbsp caster sugar (for the salad)
• 10 g fresh coriander
• Salt

🍴 Utensils

• Blender or food processor
• Large non-stick frying pan
• Saucepan with lid
• Mixing bowl
• Chef's knife
• Kitchen paper

📖 Steps

1. Rinse the jasmine rice 3 times in cold water, then put it in the saucepan with the 270 ml of water and a pinch of salt. Bring to the boil, cover, turn the heat down very low and cook for 12 minutes. Leave to stand off the heat for 10 minutes without lifting the lid.
2. Dry the thawed hake fillets very thoroughly by pressing them between several sheets of kitchen paper: this is the key step, as wet fish makes soft fish cakes that fall apart. Cut them into large chunks.
3. Blitz the hake with the red curry paste, egg, fish sauce, sugar and cornflour for about 1 minute, until you have a smooth, sticky, springy paste. Scrape down the sides halfway through so everything is well combined.
4. Top and tail the green beans and slice them into very thin 2 to 3 mm rounds. Remove the central vein from the makrut lime leaves, roll them up tightly and shred them into very fine strips. Fold everything into the fish paste with the spatula.
5. Make the salad: dissolve the sugar in the rice vinegar with a pinch of salt. Halve the cucumber lengthways, scoop out the seeds with a spoon and slice it thinly. Add the sliced shallot, pour over the dressing and chill.
6. With lightly oiled hands, shape 12 cakes about 7 cm across and 1.5 cm thick. The mixture is sticky, which is normal: re-oiling your hands between each cake helps a lot.
7. Heat half the remaining oil in the frying pan over a medium-high heat. Cook the fish cakes in two batches, using the rest of the oil for the second, for 2 to 3 minutes per side, until nicely golden and slightly puffed. Drain on kitchen paper.
8. Chop the coriander and scatter it over the cucumber salad. Serve the fish cakes piping hot with the jasmine rice and the salad, whose tangy freshness balances the heat of the curry.