Smoked mackerel fishcakes

This is a favourite weeknight standby of ours. It’s an easy process to put them together and uses easy-to-keep ingredients.

I use the vac-packed smoked mackerel fillets which are cheap as chips and give a lovely smoky flavour to the fishcakes. The only other ingredients are mash, spring onions and some breadcrumbs.

The method is very straightforward. You use roughly the same weight of mash as fish- check the pack, usually about 200g. Boil a few chopped spuds for 20 mins and mash or use leftovers.

Put the mash in a bowl and flake in the fish taking care to remove the skin and any bones. Just run it through your fingers as it goes into the bowl and you’ll pick them out. Chop two spring onions and pop them in – get your hands in and smoosh the mix together.

Divide the mix in two then divide each half again to give you four equal amounts and form into patties. Get three dishes lined up – flour, beaten egg, breadcrumbs. You can make your own crumbs by blitzing old bread in a blender, or buy a pack. Much easier and if you can find panko Japanese breadcrumbs, they’re even better – really crisp and slightly sweet.

Each cake needs to go into the flour, then the egg, then the breadcrumbs – make sure they’re fully coated.

Now they just shallow fry in a little oil for about 10 minutes or until golden on both sides. All the ingredients are already cooked so we’re just warming them through and crisping the outside.

Serve two per person with a crisp green salad and sweet chilli sauce to dip the fishcakes.

I’ve made this with frozen cod fillets and tinned fish and both work well as an alternative.