Thai Fried Fish Cakes
Learn how to prepare Thai fish cakes at home. They are light, bouncy, airy, and juicy. Each delicious bite is bursting with fish sauce, red curry paste, and herbs.
- Prep time
- 15 min
- Cook time
- 10 min
- Yield
- 4 servings
- Difficulty
- MEDIUM
Ingredients
Quantities are shown as originally provided.
- 450 gram (1 lb) white fish fillet, such as swai/dory, catfish, cod, or tilapia.
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 egg
- 2 teaspoon fish sauce
- 4 teaspoon Thai red curry paste
- 1 1/2 teaspoon coconut palm sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon ground white pepper/black pepper
- 2 scallions, thinly sliced
- 1 lemongrass, white part only, minced
- 3 kaffir lime leaves, finely chopped
- 4 stalk cilantro, finely chopped (~ 2 tablespoon)
Instructions
- 1
Use a food processor to puree fish fillet, garlic, egg, fish sauce, Thai red curry paste, coconut palm sugar, and ground white pepper into a smooth paste.
- 2
Transfer pureed fish paste to a mixing bowl, stir in scallions, lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves, and cilantro until well mixed.
- 3
Heat 2 inches of oil for deep frying over medium heat.
- 4
Once the oil is hot (~ 170 Celsius/340 Fahrenheit), scoop about 2 tablespoons of fish paste and gently drop into the hot oil to fry. (Note 1)
- 5
Fry until the fish cakes turn golden brown. It only takes a very short time to fry the fish cakes, so you must be vigilent not to let the fish cakes becoming too brown. It took me about 1 minute to get the desired doneness.
- 6
Remove fried fish cakes from hot oil and drain over a wire rack over a baking tray, or a stainless steel strainer/colander over a mixing bowl.