Bolinho De Bacalau- Jamies' South American Fish Cakes

Here is the link for the recipe or copy and paste this into your browser: http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/fish-recipes/south-american-fishcakes

This is definitely one that you make on the weekend when you have time. Time to prepare and time to clean up!!! Believe me though it is well worth the effort. The quantity of fish cakes is quite a lot too, so you will probably need to freeze some or invite the mates around.  They also make a great party snack at a dinner party served with a sweet chili dipping sauce.

This is a fun recipe to make with the kids as they like to get dirty and make the fish cakes, I find that helps when you are trying to get them to eat new things!

Be careful with the amount of mint, I find that the chopped amount needs to be just less than a tablespoon, say 2/3 of a tablespoon.

Make sure you de-seed the chili.  If you are sensitive to spicy foods, or you have little ones in the house, leave it out completely.  I find though, that one jalapeno chili in this size of mixture, is not strong at all.  Just make sure that you chop it really fine, so that no one ends up with a big piece of chili in their fish cake.

Don't be tempted to leave out the lemon and lime zest, it really makes the fish cakes.  Gives them a fresh taste.

Once you have made the fish cakes put them in the fridge for about 20 minutes this helps firm them up and set them so they don't disintegrate when you put them in the oil.

Serve with quartered lemons and a salad of your choice!  

Enjoy making and eating them, let me know how it went!  I will try to take some photo's to post here tomorrow.

This will become one of your family favourites too!  

The herbs chopped and ready to go into the mix

The mixture before the fish cakes were made

Involving my son!  It worked because he ate them for supper!

The finished product!

I must tell you I never ended up making the salad, but ate them just like this with a squeeze of lemon juice and dipped in sweet chili sauce.  I take the wellington's sweet chili sauce and add a little bit of water from the kettle, which makes it a more watery consistency but better for dipping in!


Enjoy and let me know if you were brave enough to go through all the work to get the fantastic result!!


I am now reminded why this is one of my favourites and an apt recipe to start my blog with!