The original recipe was for crab cakes and you can certainly make this recipe with crab or any other tinned fish that comes in lumps or shredded but personally in our house we’re big salmon fans. Canned fish is one of life’s big secrets because it’s cheap and always available and while it’s not always the absolute top of the tier in culinary prestige pairing it with a 5 minute fancy sauce really elevates the whole dish to date night / impress your friends levels.
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We had Bacalhau à Brás a few years ago when we were in Portugal and I was just kind of craving it lately (who doesn’t love a good salty fish and potato combination?). It uses salted cod which you can make yourself or you can usually find it in specialty stores since it stores very well. It’s a great treat for a weekend meal but it is important to plan ahead because the salted cod has to soak for a day to get some of that salt out before cooking but then it comes together pretty easily after that.
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This is a really delicious and pretty simple dinner. It’s creamy and savory and it comes together in about 20 minutes (basically while your side dish cooks) making it good for week nights or last minute dinner rush since I almost always have the ingredients on hand. It also is one of those dishes that seems fancy but actually it’s not too pricey assuming you live in a place where you can get a decent price on salmon.
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I wouldn’t say any of the food I make is authentic in any sense but I kind of feel like I’m sometimes stretching the idea of what some foods are. Either way this is undoubtedly a paella even if I made a small adjustment of not using fresh cod pieces but instead I was gifted minced fish and rolled those into balls. It’s practically the same to switch out the minced fish for fish pieces at the end and I’m sure both are great so feel free to play around with whatever you have on hand.
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Even though this looks like a very fiddly meal, it’s actually not a big deal. I’ve been making pasta quite a lot lately since I bought a pasta maker and it’s both really easy and satisfying. You can always buy the squid ink pasta and simply make the topping / sauce which make this a 15 minute meal if you have lump crab or canned crab. For sure this meal turns any night into a very fancy date night.
These are a great thing to make ahead of time with pre-made wonton wrapped. I used surimi to make them even cheaper and easier but you can use canned crab or already shedded crab and it’ll be just as good if not better. These freeze (pre-fry) very well and then take just a few minutes to make so they’re great for a party, side dish, or snacking.
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I made these for my Eurovision party on account of Eurovision was in Portugal this year and after spending a week there last year I fell in love with salted cod, locally known as bacalhau. While I had to make my own salted cod it doesn’t involve more than just a little time and a lot of salt. You can skip that part if you really want to save time and just make sure to thoroughly salt your mashed potato mixture instead.
I absolutely adore these. They’re pretty simple to make and you can use real lump crab, canned crab or surimi (krabstick) to make them. Personally I usually use surimi because it’s cheap and easy. These can be eaten plain but they also go well with a variety of dipping sauces and you can make them ahead of time and freeze them for an easy lunch or dinner.
While I do have a perfectly good quiche recipe already posted, this combination of things is completely out of this world and deserves it’s own recipe. Also in this one I used the shortcut of freezer puff pastry which creates a light vehicle for this but you can make your own crust or even use a pie crust if that’s how you want to do it.
Basically okonomiyaki are like a savory Japanese pancake that is shoved with whatever you like (the word okonomiyaki is literally “what you want”). This is a pretty basic one with just some dried tuna flakes and cabbage but you can pretty much put in anything you want from blue cheese to fish eggs to ground bison – whatever you have laying around. You can pick up the Japanese ingredients in a specialty Asian store or on Amazon.