Salmon Cakes

I just had the best Salmon Cakes I’ve ever tasted and they were pretty easy to make.  Any kitchen should have a mini food processor, such as a Cuisinart Mini-prep plus.  It does all the chopping for you.  Let me start my story with I was hungry and it was lunch and I am home from work to celebrate New Years Day.  So I had time to do this.  I purchased 3 envelopes of Chicken of the Sea Skinless & Boneless Pink Salmon at Walmart *(in the tuna area) the other day, mostly because I eat a lot of salad and like to add protein like tuna, crab or salmon to my salad – which will be another story another time.  So I had this salmon in my pantry and saw a recipe on the back of the envelope for “Simple Salmon Cakes”  I looked at the ingredients I would need and had almost everything I needed except for bread crumbs, but I did make a loaf of bread a few days ago in my bread maker and it was sitting there, and I knew I wasn’t going to finish the bread before it got hard, so I chopped the remaining loaf in my Cuisinart Mini-Prep plus into tiny, soft bread crumbs.  I only needed a cup, so I put the rest in a zip lock and put it in the freezer for another day.

I didn’t have “green onions” so I used my left over red onion and threw it in the Cuisinart and chopped it fine, I had mini bell peppers from another recipe so I did the same with them and chopped them fine. So there you go, you can substitute veggies with what you have.  I also didn’t have any lemon juice, but had lime juice and used that instead.  So here is the actual recipe:

• 1 5oz pouch of Chicken of the Sea Skinless & Boneless Pink Salmon
• 1/4 cup chopped green onion (or red or scallions)
• 1/4 cup Mayonnaise
• 1 tablespoon lemon or lime juice
• 1/2 tsp Garlic powder
• Dash Cayenne pepper
• 1/4 cup finely chopped bell pepper
• 1 medium egg (beaten)
• 1 cup breadcrumbs (fresh is best!)
• 3 tablespoon butter (I sprayed the pan with “pam” and used 1 tsp of butter)
• 1/4 tsp of seasoned salt – I didn’t use salt

Combine onion, mayo, lemon or lime juice, and seasonings in a bowl. Add salmon, egg and 1/4 cup breadcrumbs or more if mixture is too loose to gather into your hand, mixture will and should be soft and loose, not stiff and sticky.  Gather about 1/2 cup mixture in your hand and form into a loose ball, roll around in remainder 3/4 cup of breadcrumbs to form a crust and place on a plate while you do the same with the rest.  Heat skillet spray with cooking spray and melt a tsp of butter on skillet.  Add each cake and cook for 4 minutes on the first side on medium heat (electric stove is #5) while this is cooking – wash your dishes.  It is better to be busy instead of bothering the cakes while they cook.  After 4 minutes, flip over and cook for 4-5 minutes.  Finish cleaning your mess.  When they are done, you can eat on a plate with a tablespoon of mayo (I use Kraft Mayo with Olive Oil reduced fat)  and tablespoon of relish (I use Famous Dave’s hot and sweet) or put between bread and dress how you like.  These are really good – you can be creative and use this stuffing in mushrooms and bake in a 350 oven for probably about 20 minutes.  Enjoy!