South African Fishcakes - Recipes

In South Africa, especially the Cape, fishcakes are food for the kings. You’ll find almost every household having their own family recipe for fishcakes. Some made with ‘sardines’, other with ‘smoorsnoek’ or ‘stokvis’… It is almost part of the tradition, having a secret fishcake family recipe. For this reason, we are going to share one recipe in English and the other in Afrikaans. After a visit to Cape Town and getting to know all of its wonderful people, you’ll understand the rich culture of this beautiful country…

Cuisine: South African

Difficulty: Easy

Time: 10 Min.

Sardine Fishcake Recipe

Ingredients:

2 cans of Sardines in tomatosauce
1 onion (finely chopped)
50 ml cake flour
20 ml oat bran
1 egg
salt and pepper to taste

How to make sardine fishcakes:

Take out all the bones from the sardines and drain the sauce.
Now mix all the ingredients together and season with salt and pepper.
Shape or add big spoons full of the mixture into the oil and deep-fry until golden brown and done.

You should be able to form about 12 – 16 fishcakes from this mix depending on how big you are making them.

Stokvis - Viskoekies

Bestandele:

500 ml gaar stokvis, gevlok
1 knoffelhuisie, fyngemaak (optioneel)
2 sprietuie, fyn gekap
15 ml fyngerasperde suurlemoenskil
5 ml fyn gemaalde koljander
2 ml fyn gemaalde gemmer
125 ml gedroogde broodkrummels
50 ml meelblom
1 eier

Hoe om die viskoekies te maak:

Meng die stokvis, knoffel, sprietuie, suurlemoenskil, koljander en gemmer saam.
Voeg die broodkrummels, meelblom en eier by en meng goed. Vorm koekies met jou hande.
Verhit die olie in ‘n braaipan en braai aan albei kante tot goudbruin en deurgaar.

Dit is heerlik saam met ‘n soet heuning en mostert sousie.

Hake / Stokvis

Using hake (or Stokvis in Afrikaans) to make fishcakes is a fantastic idea, especially if you have had fish and chips the previous night and you still have some of the hake leftovers.

So a great idea when staying in a self-catering place, buy fish and chips for dinner, but enough so you’ll have some left to make fishcakes for the next days’ lunch.

Served with a fresh salad this is the perfect lunch.

How to make Hake Fishcakes:

500 ml cooked hake, flaked
2 spring onions, finely chopped
15 ml zest of a lemon
5 ml finely ground coriander
2 ml finely ground ginger
125 ml dried breadcrumbs
50 ml flour
1 egg

Method:

Mix everything and fry until golden brown and done.

As hake is such a neutral-tasting fish, you can easily leave out the coriander and ginger and replace it with ingredients you love, like sweet peppers or parsley, etc…