Quick, Easy Fish Cakes with Tinned Tuna & Butter Beans

A rib-sticker that ticks every box in the family-recipe department: versatile, uses store-cupboard ingredients, packs a hefty nutritional punch, tastes like home and made in a jiffy. Well, almost a jiffy. Sure, you could fry a couple of frozen fish fingers faster than you can make these from scratch, but I promise it's worth spending an extra 15 minutes in the kitchen to prepare these scrunchy little numbers.

>> Click here to go straight to the recipe.

I love home-made fish cakes, whether they're delicate little salmon cakes, or springy, zingy Thai cakes, or - best of all - comforting mommy-style ones made with leftover flaked linefish and mashed potatoes, with plenty of fresh parsley and lemon juice.

But the trouble with the last variety of fish cake is that if you don't have leftover mash to start with, you have to faff around peeling and boiling potatoes, which is more effort than I'm prepared to make when I'm standing (with sore feet and a bad attitude) in front of the fridge, wondering what to make for supper. My answer is to use pureéd tinned butter beans.

Also, this is a versatile recipe, because you can add virtually anything you like: chopped capers or gherkins, grated onion, tinned or fresh sweetcorn kernels, freezer peas, fresh ginger, finely chopped green or red chillies, crumbled feta, grated Cheddar, or all manner of herbs and spices, such as chopped fresh parsley, chives, dill and mint, or warming powders such as cumin, coriander and turmeric.

Similarly, you can serve these with any sort of sauce (although I bet that anyone under the age of eight will be satisfied with a squirt of violent-red ketchup): a herby mayonnaise or tartare sauce, or a bright lemon-ginger vinaigrette, or a hot-sour-salty Asian dipping sauce.

The very best fish cakes are floured, egged and dipped in breadcrumbs before they're shallow-fried in hot oil, to achieve a super-crunchy golden crust. But this is family food, and I urge you not to waste your time on breadcrumbing. Dust the fish cakes lightly with seasoned flour just before you fry them in a good lick of sizzling-hot oil, and I promise they'll turn out with a lovely crispy skin.

This mixture is easier to handle if you leave it in the fridge to firm up for a few hours. If you have time before you go to work, mix it up in the morning and leave it in the fridge, covered, all day. Roll into small flat cakes, or burger-sized patties, as you please.

Quick, Easy Fish Cakes with Tinned Tuna & Butter Beans 

2 x 400 g tins butter beans, or similar white beans
1  clove of garlic, peeled and crushed
1  free-range egg
2 tsp (10 ml) Dijon mustard
4 Tbsp (60 ml) white cake flour
the finely grated zest of a lemon
2 x 170 g tins solid-packed tuna, drained and flaked
½ cup (125 ml) finely chopped fresh parsley (or fresh herbs of your choice; see above)
salt and freshly milled black pepper

For dusting and cooking:
200 ml cake flour
salt and freshly milled pepper
sunflower or olive oil, for frying

To serve:
lemon wedges
a dressing, sauce or mayonnaise of your choice

Open one tin of butter beans. Drain the beans well in a colander and put them into the goblet of a food processor or liquidiser along with the garlic, egg, mustard and flour. Whizz at high speed until you have a fairly smooth purée. Now drain all the liquid from the second tin of beans and add them to goblet of the food processor. Press the 'pulse' button a few times to process everything to a thick, slightly chunky texture: there should be a few small lumps and bumps of beans. Tip this mixture into a mixing bowl and add in the lemon zest, flaked tuna and parsley. Using a large spoon or your hands, mix well to form a firm, chunky paste. Season generously with salt and pepper.

At this point, you can cover the mixture and put it in the fridge for a few hours to firm up. Or, you can shape the cakes and cook them right away.

Put the dusting flour into a bowl and season with salt and pepper. Generously sprinkle a chopping board with some of this seasoned flour. Pinch off portions of the tuna-bean paste and form into neat patties between your palms. (If you want perfectly formed patties, tip all of the paste onto the floured board, pat out to a thickness of 3 cm, and cut out circles with a cookie-cutter or the bottom of a drinking glass, as if you are making scones). Coat each cake with seasoned flour and shake or blow gently to remove any excess.

Heat the oil to a depth of 1-2 mm in a large frying pan. When the oil just begins to shimmer, add the fish cakes (in batches of three to six, depending on their size) and fry, over a medium to brisk heat, for a minute or two on each side, or until crispy and golden. Flip the cakes over and fry for another two minutes. Drain well and keep hot in the oven while you cook the remaining cakes.

Serve piping hot with lemon wedges, your choice of sauce or dressing, and a crisp green salad.

Serves 6. 

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Hot Garlicky New Potatoes with a Cold & Silken Tuna Sauce

I am an ardent fan of new potatoes, especially if they're dug fresh and tender from the earth (or, at least, if I can buy them within two or three days of Farmer X digging them up all fresh and tender).  With their lovely waxen flesh and squeaky little skins, baby potatoes are, to my mind, a prince among vegetables. What a shame, then, that new potatoes are so often treated as Cinderellas, and edged to the side of the plate, where they become a supporting act to the main meaty event. This recipe - a revamp of one of the earliest dishes I devised for this blog - celebrates new potatoes, and elevates them to what I hope is a starring role.

This beautiful salad/soup bowl was made by master potter David Walters of Franschhoek.

This recipe is inspired by the sublime Italian dish Vitello Tonnato - thin slices of cold poached veal coated in a silken sauce of mayonnaise, tuna, capers, lemon juice and olive oil. I'd tasted pale imitations of this dish once or twice, but it was only when I went to Italy for the first time in 1991 that I experienced (in a small, nondescript B&B in the Aoste region) the full glory of this dish. We were exhausted, my husband and I, having driven and argued all day, heading in our rented car for the Swiss border, with a shrieking and wet-nappied toddler strapped to the back seat. We checked grumpily into the first B&B we found en route, and to our fortune, Mama - a genuine, muttering, black-stockinged genius of a grandmother - was in the kitchen that night, weaving her particular Italian magic.

I can't remember many details of that meal, but I do remember Mama's Vitello Tonnato, and how my eyes rolled dreamily back in my head as I ate it.

I made the dish a couple of times in the years after our trip, using veal, but as this ingredient is not easy to find in South Africa, and scandalously expensive, I came up with a recipe with the same - or as close as I could get to Mama's original - sauce, but using,  instead of veal,  boiled baby spuds, which are briefly tossed in hot olive oil and garlic.

In my earlier recipe, I insisted on peeled potatoes. I've changed my mind about this since. Half the fun of eating a new potato is enjoying the earthy taste of its pale, papery skin. Peel the potatoes if you must, and good luck to you.

Three other changes to my earlier recipe: I've added snipped chives for a little oniony bite, and also lightened up the heavily mayonnaised dressing with some natural yoghurt. As a final improvement, and to add a little texture, I've deep-fried some capers so they open up into little crunchy flowers.

I suggest you serve this as a starter.

The sauce little dish, on the right, by master potter David Walters of Franschhoek, has a handy indented rim, designed so that you can rest a spoon on it.

Hot New Potatoes with a Cold & Silken Tuna Sauce

For the potatoes:
1.2 kg baby potatoes (or enough for six)
1 tsp (5 ml) salt
30 ml (2 T) olive oil
2 small cloves garlic, peeled

For the dressing:
1 tin tuna in oil, drained
2 large, good-quality anchovy fillets
3 T (45 ml) freshly squeezed lemon juice
½ cup (125 ml)  good mayonnaise (Hellman's, or home-made, but not salad cream)
½ cup (125 ml) thick natural yoghurt
50 ml olive oil
14 capers, drained of their brine
a pinch of salt (but taste the sauce first; the anchovy fillets may be salty enough)
freshly milled black pepper
a little hot water

To garnish:
36 capers, drained of their brine
2 T (30 ml) sunflower oil
finely snipped fresh chives

First make the dressing. Put all the ingredients, except the hot water, into the goblet of a blender and whizz at high speed, adding a teaspoonful of hot water at a time, until you have a smooth, silky sauce. The dressing should have the consistency of thick cream, or a thin custard. Process the dressing until it's absolutely smooth. Pour into a bowl, cover and chill for two to three hours.

Put the new potatoes into a large pot, cover with cold water to which you have added a teaspoon of salt, and bring quickly to the boil. Turn down the heat slightly, and boil the potatoes briskly for 10-15 minutes, or until they are tender and cooked right through, but not falling apart.

While they are cooking, crush the garlic to a fine paste. Heat the olive oil gently in a pan and stir in the crushed garlic. Fry gently for a minute or two, but don't allow the garlic to brown. Drain the potatoes thoroughly and cut each one in half.  Tip them into the saucepan containing the oil and garlic, and toss well to coat.

Pile the potatoes into a warmed dish, cover loosely with a tea towel and keep hot.

Now make the fried capers. Using a piece of kitchen paper, pat the capers quite dry.  Heat the oil in a small sauce pan until very hot, but not smoking. Drop the dried capers into the oil and fry  for a minute or so, or until they open up like flowers, and become very crispy. Remove the capers from the pan with a slotted spoon, drain well on kitchen paper, and pile into a little dish.

Using a pair of scissors, finely snip the chives and place them in a separate small dish.

Divide the hot potatoes between six warmed plates (or pile them on a big platter). Remove the cold tuna sauce from the fridge, decant into a small  jug, and pass it around the table, along with the fried capers and snipped chives..

Serves six. Print Friendly

Seared Peppered Tuna with Fresh Oregano, Radishes and Verlaque Dressing

Seared fresh tuna is often served with oriental-style dressings, and it's certainly good this way, but it's not often you see it combined with the singing flavours of Mediterranean

Plate by David Walters

herbs. Fresh, pungent oregano, in particular, is just lovely with almost-raw tuna, as are thyme and basil.

The trick here is to use the herbs quite sparingly so that they don't overwhelm the delicate tuna: I raided my recently planted herb-garden-in-pots and pinched off just the tiniest new leaves.

In this dish, tuna is rolled in crushed black pepper, seared in a blazing-hot pan, sliced, and combined with fresh herbs, a little chopped red chilli and crunchy radishes.

You can use any salad dressing you like - this is good, for example, with a zingy lemon vinaigrette - but I cut corners and dressed the tuna using a local bottled dressing: Verlaque Sweet Basil, Sundried Tomato and Olive Oil Spash.

I seldom buy bottled dressings (they are always too salty and creamy and they taste so... well... so bottled. And, besides, it's so easy to make your own dressings).  My attitude has changed, though, since I asked my friend, Adrienne Verlaque, to bring me a few bottles from her Verlaque range.

I'd admired Adrienne's beautifully labelled bottles of balsamic reductions, infused olive oils and salad 'splashes' in my local Woolworths, but had thriftily (and rather snobbily, I'm afraid) passed them over.


After eagerly tasting my way through several bottles, I have learned the error of my ways (that is, don't judge a dressing because it's bottled). Adrienne is a wizardess in the flavour department, and has incorporated into her dressings a range of  wonderful exotic ingredients  that I don't have a chance of procuring locally:  Persian pomegranates, Turkish figs, cranberries, white truffles and porcini mushrooms among them.

 Exotic ingredients aside, it's Adrienne's clever use of distinctive South African flavours that really appeals to me:  these include Cape gooseberries, Cape rough-skin lemons, guavas, passion fruit, mangos, marula, wild garlic, fynbos honey and Rooibos tea.

These ingredients are not merely waved over the dressings, either: using her particular magic, Adrienne has managed to distill the essence of each flavour, giving each product in the range a distinctive and authentic South African punch. Click here to find out where to buy Verlaque dressings.

This recipe serves four as a starter but is easily doubled.

Seared Peppered Tuna with Fresh Oregano, Radishes and Verlaque Dressing

one 400 g loin of fresh tuna
a little olive oil
2 tsp (10 ml) coarsely ground black peppercorns
8 little radishes
1 small red chilli [optional]
a few young sprigs of fresh oreganum, thyme and basil, or any combination of Mediterranean herbs
a pinch of flaky sea salt

For the dressing:
Verlaque dressing of your choice (see notes, above)
OR
4 T (60 ml) fruity olive oil
4 tsp (20 ml) good vinegar, or fresh lemon juice

Heat a non-stick frying pan until it is blazing hot.  Trim the tuna loin of all raggedy bits and coat generously on all sides with olive oil. Strew the crushed black peppercorns on a chopping board, and roll the tuna loin firmly over the pepper, pressing so that it is well coated on all sides. Open the windows in your kitchen - there will be some smoking.  Place the tuna in the ferociously hot pan, press down hard with a spatula, and cook for 45 seconds on one side, or until about 1 mm of flesh on the cooking side turns opaque.  Flip over, then cook the remaining three sides for 45 seconds each. The fish should be remain a rosy, raw pink in the middle, with a thin outer crust.  Remove from the heat and allow to cool for a minute.

Cut the tuna into thin slices using a very sharp knife (this is easiest if you squeeze the loin tightly to compress the flesh).  Arrange the slices on a platter. Top and tail the radishes and cut them into paper-thin slices using a mandolin or sharp knife. Cut the red chilli in half horizontally, scrape out the seeds and cut into a very fine dice. Strip the baby herb leaves from their stalks. Scatter the radish slices, chilli and baby herb leaves on top of the tuna.  Sprinkle the dressing over the tuna slices, and scatter over the flaky salt.  Allow to stand at room temperature for 15 minutes, then serve.

Serves 4 as a starter. 

PS: Have you noticed how foodie photographs of seared tuna show perfectly round or - ludicrous! - square slices of tuna? Cheffy cooks achieve this by wrapping the raw tuna in clingfilm - in a tight salami-like sausage for round slices, or pressed into a rectangular mould for square ones - and then refrigerating the fish until it holds its shape. I sincerely hope you won't be tempted to do this. Print Friendly

Pretty Little Individual Tuna Salads for Children

I'm trying to convince my daughter that a fresh, crunchy salad can be a meal on its own, and that crisp things are exceedingly delicious and well worth eating. It's not that Elinor is averse to salady stuff: like many kids, she happily eats lettuce, cucumber, cherry tomatoes and carrot sticks. But she pales at the sight of a huge platter of salad, and grudgingly eats just a little. Perhaps the problem is that an overflowing bowl of salad is just too intimidating for a 10-year-old child.

Plate by David Walters

Recently, having lunch at Café Bon Bon in Franschhoek, I was served a little leafy salad encircled by a cucumber slice, and it looked so pretty that I thought I'd use the same trick with a protein-packed tuna salad. (Look, I normally wouldn't be seen dead stacking food in a tower, but I reckon this presentation might just get Ellie to chow down.)  We'll see when she gets home from school.

You will need one of those cheffy food rings to form this salad: if you don't have one (and why should you, indeed?) take the bottom off the tuna tin you've just opened, and use that as a ring.

Pretty Little Individual Tuna Salads for Children

For four salads: 
2 large free-range eggs
1 English cucumber
iceberg or any other crispy lettuce, torn into small pieces
a handful of cherry tomatoes, halved
a can of tuna, drained of its oil
8 calamata olives, stoned and halved
75 g feta cheese
chives, finely snipped

For the dressing:
4 Tbsp (60 ml) olive oil
the juice of a lemon
a pinch of salt
1 tsp (5 ml) honey

First make the dressing: whisk all the ingredients together and set aside. Slide the eggs into gently boiling water and cook for 9 minutes. Remove the pot from the heat and set it under a trickling cold tap for 3 minutes. Rinse the cucumber and cut a 5mm horizontal slice off the long side to expose the flesh. Using a mandolin or sharp knife, cut the cucumber into horizontal slices, each about 1-2 mm thick. Place a metal ring (or similar) on a small plate and firmly press the cucumber slice around the inside to form a circle (you may need to use two overlapping slices, depending on the length of your cucumber). Cut any left-over slices into matchstick-sized pieces. Fill the cucumber ring with a mixture of lettuce, cucumber sticks, tomatoes, tuna, olives and feta. Now gently slide the food ring up and off. Repeat with the other three salads. Peel and quarter the eggs. Top the salads with the warm egg quarters and a scattering of snipped chives. Trickle the dressing over the top of each salad. Serve immediately.

Makes 4 salads. Print Friendly

Wasabi and Avocado Potato Salad with Seared Sesame Tuna Steaks

Nose-nuking wasabi paste and gentle, buttery avocado are unlikely bedfellows, I admit. But when combined in a creamy dressing and poured over freshly boiled and cubed spuds, they... well, I suppose they come together. With fireworks and a celestial choir.

I am a devoted fan of potato salad: not the yellow, greasy Sixties version, but a lighter, brighter breed of salad, made with unskinned boiled baby potatoes and dressed with a mixture of thick white yoghurt, good mayonnaise, lemon juice, mint, parsley, chives, onion and the slightest twang of garlic.

Because I was planning to serve some lovely fresh tuna steaks for supper, I thought I'd add wasabi paste to the dressing. It tasted stingingly good, but the dressing wasn't the very pale pistachio-green I'd hoped for , so I stirred in the finely mashed flesh of a ripe and voluptuous avocado. To my surprise, the delicate taste of avocado gave the aggressive wasabi flavour a good punch on the nose - and the result was a tie.

The ingredients for the dressing should be whisked together just minutes before you serve this dish. The first time I made this salad, I concocted the dressing before I put the potatoes on to boil, and 45 minutes later I found it had turned from a creamy wobble into a thin, bubbly liquid. Why the mixture liquefied, I don't know, but it had something to do with the wasabi and the avocado. Maybe their knees just turned to water?

Wasabi and Avocado Potato Salad with Seared Sesame Tuna Steaks

18 small new potatoes (or 8 waxy, thin-skinned young potatoes)
1 T (15 ml) salt
2 ripe avocados

For the dressing:
1/2 an onion, peeled and very finely chopped or grated
the juice of 1 lemon
3/4 cup (180 ml) good mayonnaise (such as Hellman's, or home-made)
3/4 cup (180 ml) thick plain white yoghurt
1 clove fresh garlic, peeled and crushed
1 - 2 t (5- 10 ml) wasabi paste, to taste
1 ripe avocado
a dash of Tabasco sauce (optional)
a handful of finely snipped fresh chives
salt and freshly milled black pepper

For the tuna steaks:

4 fresh tuna steaks
6 T white sesame seeds (or a combination of sesame and shelled pumpkin seeds)
3 T (45 ml) olive oil or vegetable oil
salt and milled black pepper

Put the potatoes into a big pot and cover with water. Add the salt and bring to the boil. Boil for about 30 minutes (depending on the size of the spuds) or until they are quite tender, but not splitting.

While the potatoes are cooking, combine the grated onion and the lemon juice in a small bowl, and set aside (the lemon juice will take the sting out of the onions).

Sprinkle the sesame seeds onto a plate. Press the tuna steaks, top and bottom, into the sesame seeds, so that both sides are well coated. Put the steaks onto a big plate, in a single layer, cover with tightly with cling-film, and press down with the palm of your hand so that the seeds adhere to the surface of the steaks. Place in the fridge.

Remove the potatoes from the heat, drain in a colander and set aside to cool while you make the dressing and cook the tuna steaks.

Heat the oil in a large frying pan and, when it's very hot, add the tuna steaks. You may need to do this in two batches, if the steaks are bigger than the palm of your hand. Cook for 2-3 minutes on one side (you'll see, by observing the edges of the steaks, the flesh turning opaque as it comes into contact with the heat). When the opacity has crept two or three millimetres up, flip the steaks over and cook for a few more minutes. I like tuna with a lovely rare, rosy centre - that is, virtually raw inside - but feel free to cook the tuna right through if you'd like it that way. Remove the tuna steaks from the heat and set aside to rest.

Cut the warm cooked potatoes into chunks (or leave them whole if they're tiny baby ones). Skin the avocados, cut them into cubes, and sprinkle with a little fresh lemon juice to prevent them browning.

Now make the dressing. Put the onion and lemon-juice mixture into a big bowl. Using a wire whisk, beat in all the remaining ingredients, except for the chives. (Wasabi paste comes in various degrees of nose-blasting fierceness, so I suggest you add a teaspoon to start, and add more to taste). Check the seasoning, adding more salt and pepper if necessary, and then tip the potato and avocado cubes into the dressing. Toss very lightly to combine. Tip into a salad bowl and scatter with the finely snipped chives.

Using a very sharp knife, cut the tuna steaks into slices, and arrange around the edges of the potato salad.

Serve immediately.

Serves 4-6 Print Friendly

Cheesy Tuna and Sweetcorn Lunchbox 'Muffins'

Cheesy Tuna and Sweetcorn
Lunchbox 'Muffins'

I have no talent whatsoever in the lunchbox department, no doubt because I was traumatised by the healthy lunches packed for me by my own sainted mother.

Making lunchboxes is a chore I hate, because I'm just too disorganised in the mornings to cut fruit and veggies up into pieces or make little dips or energy bars or the three-course designer meals that nestle smugly in the lunch boxes of some of my kids' friends.

It would help if my children all liked the same things, but of course, they don't. So I got to thinking, what snack could I put into their lunchboxes that they all like, that can be made in a jiffy, and that packs some protein, energy and fibre?

Here is my solution. These  muffin-like savoury bites are ridiculously quick and easy to make, and you can add anything you like to them. Fresh sweetcorn cut from the cob would be lovely, if you have it, and you can use wholewheat (Nutty Wheat) flour if you'd like a more substantial muffin.

Cheesy Tuna, Sweetcorn and Courgette Lunchbox 'Muffins'

1 x 170 g tin solid-packed  tuna, drained
1 x 210 g tins sweetcorn kernels, drained
1 cup (250 ml) coarsely grated courgettes [zucchini]
1 cup (250 ml) grated Cheddar
1 cup (250 ml) flour
1 cup (250 ml) milk
1½ tsp (7.5 ml) baking powder
3 extra-large free-range eggs, lightly whisked
2 Tbsp (30 ml) finely chopped chives or spring onions
juice of half a lemon
½ tsp (2.5 ml) mild mustard
cherry tomatoes and extra cheese for topping
salt and milled pepper

Heat the oven to 180°C. Generously grease a large, deep muffin pan (or use paper muffin cups) with butter or oil. Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl.

Fill each muffin cup to the brim, and press half a cherry tomato, cut side up, into the surface. Sprinkle with more Cheddar.

Bake at 180° C for 30 minutes, or until puffed and brown. Run a knife around the edge of each muffin while it's still hot. Store, covered, in the fridge.

Makes 12 muffins. 

Cook's Notes: 

• Season these muffins generously with salt - they need more than you would think.
• A cube of feta cheese pressed into the top would be nice.

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Hot baby potatoes with cold tuna-caper dressing

This recipe is inspired by the sublime Italian dish Vitello Tonnato - thin slices of poached veal coated in a silken sauce of mayonnaise, tuna, capers, lemon juice and olive oil. Not having any thin shavings of baby cow on hand, I tried it with garlicky baby potatoes. Heaven.

I never peel new potatoes, but for this recipe, a peeled spud is essential. You can buy ready-peeled new potatoes at Woolies. (Or you can buy, for a mere R150, a potato-peeling appliance. Post a comment if you want to know more.)

For the potatoes:

1 kg baby potatoes, peeled
30 ml (2 T) butter
1 clove garlic

For the dressing:

1 tin tuna, drained of brine or oil
1-3 anchovy fillets, to taste
juice of two fat lemons
250 ml good mayonnaise (Hellman's, or home-made, but not salad cream)
150 ml olive oil
10 capers
a pinch of salt (but taste it first; the anchovy fillets may be salty enough)
freshly milled black pepper
a little hot water

To garnish:

a scattering of capers

First make the dressing. Put all the ingredients except the hot water in the goblet of a blender and whizz until very smooth and fine. The dressing should have the consistency of thick pouring cream, or a thin custard - it it's too stiff, add a little hot water. Process the dressing until it's silky and absolutely smooth. Pour into a jug or bowl and chill for an hour or two in the fridge.

Cook the potatoes in plenty of briskly boiling, salted water (or microwave in a covered glass bowl) until tender but not falling apart (about 25 minutes). While they are cooking, crush the garlic to a fine paste, mix it with the butter in a small saucepan and heat it gently until the butter begins to bubble. Cook for a minute or two, but don't allow the garlic to brown. (You can also do this in the microwave). Drain the potatoes thoroughly, tip them into the saucepan and toss well to coat. Scatter the capers over the potatoes.

Serve the potatoes piping hot, and pass around a jug of cold dressing.

Serve six as a side dish. Print Friendly