The Best Pan-Fried Fresh Salmon Cakes

Published January 1, 2000.

How do you get a delicate yet toothsome texture and a soft but clear salmon flavor? It's all in how you handle the fish and the binders.

The Problem

Fish cakes are rarely made from fresh fish, and they taste it-mushy, greasy, and lackluster in flavor. Salmon cakes often suffer from a texture that is either dry, overprocessed, and mushy or wet, loose, and underbound. Fresh salmon flavor may be close to absent, replaced by a distracting cacophony of ill-placed seasonings. The exterior coating may be lackluster.

The Goal

To produce crisp, browned, and bright-flavored fish cakes made with fresh salmon. Our ideal salmon cake is toothsome, tender, and moist on the inside; crisp and golden brown on the outside; shapely; and firm and cohesive throughout.

The Solution

Chop the fresh fillets by hand, use a bit of mayonnaise for a binder and fresh bread crumbs for texture, and flavor with a simple combination of onion, lemon juice, and parsley. Freeze the salmon cakes for 15 minutes before breading; this makes for easier handling and helps the breading to adhere. Coat and fry for just two minutes on each side for fresh-tasting salmon cakes with an irresistibly thin and toasty crust.

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