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Prawn cakes with caper butter

Prawn cakes with caper butter
Tony Jackman
By Tony Jackman
10 Jul 2024
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Getting the mix exactly right for a fish cake takes some focusing. They can turn out too soft, crumbly, or a bit sort of ‘squashy’. These came out exactly the way I had hoped.

Prawns were the seafood used here, but this basic recipe can be used for firm fish instead, as long as it’s cooked and dry. If using canned tuna, which you can do, you need to squeeze out every millilitre of water in the packed fish.

Speaking of which, the other day I opened a can of tuna, leaving the lid slightly hinged, and then pressed down over the sink, with hot water running to drain the juices away. Once I’d done that, the “lid” was half way down the tin. In other words, the actual fish content was around 50%. Shocking, nê?

Anyway, these had been intended to be fish cakes, and in particular I was looking for salmon or haddock. I could find none: neither cans of good old John West, nor fresh or even frozen haddock. So I cast an eye over the freezers and my gaze fell upon a 400 g pack of “prawn meat”, which were plump curled little prawn tails. That turned out to be a lucky turn of events.

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I then put my mind to getting the balance of prawn to starch, egg and other ingredients just right, so that they would hold their shape and composition while being fried.

Fish cakes of any kind always benefit from something fresh and a bit of bite. The former came from fresh coriander, the latter from chillies. I also decided to use a touch of mayonnaise in the mixture, a squeeze of lemon and a dash of fish sauce. 

But the best component was capers, some of it in the mixture, the rest of it in caper butter to be served with mashed potato and a little napped over the prawn cakes.

It’s one of my favourite recipes of the year to date.

(Serves 4)

Ingredients

400 g prawn meat

1 bunch fresh coriander

2 red chillies, deseeded and roughly chopped

1 tsp capers or caperberries, chopped

5 Tbsp fresh breadcrumbs

1 jumbo egg, beaten

1 Tbsp fish sauce

2 Tbsp mayonnaise

Grated zest of 1 lemon

Salt and white pepper to taste

Flour for dusting

Coconut oil for frying

Coriander leaves for garnishing

Caper butter:

2 tsp chopped capers

4 Tbsp butter

Grated zest of 1 lemon

Salt

White pepper

Also:

Potatoes, boiled until tender, drained, mashed, finished with butter and milk and seasoned to taste with salt and pepper.

Method

Drain the defrosted bag of prawn meat over the sink, then take big handfuls of the prawns and squeeze out all the water as if your very life depended on it. Squeeze and squeeze, and squeeze again.

Put the exhausted prawns on double sheets of kitchen paper, top with more double sheets and get rid of any remaining liquid.

Now chop the dry prawn meat up and put in the bowl of a food processor. 

Add to it the chopped coriander, chillies, capers, breadcrumbs, egg, fish sauce, mayonnaise and zest, and pulse on and off until it is well combined. The result should be firm and pretty dry. Add a few extra breadcrumbs if it looks too gloopy. Check the seasoning, and adjust salt and pepper if necessary.

Take clumps of the prawn mixture and roll into manageable balls. Pat the balls between your floured palms until they turn into cute little patties about 4 cm across and 1.5 cm deep. Ish. The more compact they are, the easier they will be to manage in the pan. Best not to make them too wide and shallow.

Dust a board with flour, and mop the flour up on each side of the prawn patties. 

Now this is important: put them on a plate in the fridge for half an hour.

Fry them fairly gently in melted coconut oil for a couple of minutes on each side or until lightly browned (cook them directly from the fridge). Do them in batches, making sure they have enough space around them. Keep them warm as you work.

In a small pot, melt 4 Tbsp butter, stir in the chopped capers and lemon zest, and season with salt and pepper.

Mash your potatoes, run melted butter and milk through them, and season to taste with salt and pepper.

Serve mash alongside a pair of prawn cakes, drizzled with caper butter. DM

Tony Jackman is Galliova Food Writer 2023, jointly with TGIFood columnist Anna Trapido. Order his book, foodSTUFF, here

Follow Tony Jackman on Instagram @tony_jackman_cooks.

This dish is photographed on a plate by Mervyn Gers Ceramics.

There are thousands of recipes in our TGIFood Archive, as well as every story Tony Jackman and his team have written in the last five and more years. Find it here.

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