Jamie Oliver has Brainwashed Me

I wouldn't say that I'm the biggest fan of fish - I'll have a fish supper or a tuna toastie, but that's about as far as it goes.  But then I watched Jamie Oliver's Fish Supper, and I went from gaping in horror as Jamie held up a grey, slimy looking squid, to drooling over that same squid when it was beautifully cooked 5 minutes later.  I think Jamie Oliver has some kind of voodoo powers.  Not quite amibitious enough to try the squid recipe, I decided to try and make another recipe from the show, the crab fishcakes.  Unfortunately neither Tesco or the fishmonger had crab, so I made do with crabmeat from a tin.  However, according to Jamie Oliver, the fact that I tried to buy a crab has created demand, so maybe if you try to buy one (in the Dundee area anyway) you'll be more lucky...  Here is a picture of my finished recipe, of which I am quite proud:

 For the fishcakes, you will need:

• 500g white and brown crabmeat
• 500g potatoes
• 2 lemons
• 1/2 a red chilli (I used a whole chilli and it wasn't too spicy)
• 3 spring onions
• parsley

Jamie Oliver also had a salsa recipe to go with the fishcakes, but I used my sister Mairi's recipe instead as I wanted to try it out.  If you don't trust Mairi, visit Jamie Oliver's website.  For the salsa you need:

• 4 tomatoes
• Half a red onion
• 1 red pepper
• Juice of one lime/lemon
• 3 red chillies
• Basil

1. Firstly peel and chop the potatoes into small chunks.  Boil them for 15-20 minutes, they are done when a piece of potato can easily be crushed against the side of the pot with a fork.

2. While the potatoes boil, make your salsa.  Cut the tomatoes in half and scoop out the seed-filled centres with a teaspoon and discard. Dice the remaining tomato into small cubes, as well as the red pepper.  Dice the chilli and red onion very very finely, and add everything to a bowl.  Squeeze in the lime or lemon juice, sprinkle on the basil, and mix well.

 3. When the potatoes are done, drain them and return to the pot.  Add the crab meat and salt and pepper, and mash.  Grate in the zest of the two lemons, and finely chop the chilli and spring onions and add, along with the parsley.

 4. Divide the mixture into round patties and refridgerate for four hours or overnight.  I notied this part of the recipe far too late so I didn't refridgerate the fishcakes at all but they turned out okay, though refridgeration may have made them a bit more solid.

 5. Heat some olive oil in a pan and add the fishcakes, cook them for about 5 minutes, turning once with a spatula.

Here are the finished fishcakes, they were nice but didn't taste too strongly of crab, I would advise trying to find an actual crab before trying to make them.  A recipe for the spicy potato wedges in the photo is coming soon...

If you want to save our seas from becoming empty, there is a petition here which you can sign to prevent the shocking numbers of fish that are caught and thrown back dead, just because they aren't the 'popular' cod or haddock.  Stand up for obscure fish today!