Vietnamese Fishcakes with Dill (Simple Ingredients)

Make Vietnamese Fishcakes Without Eggs and Potatoes

I love these Vietnamese fishcakes that can be made without using eggs and potatoes as a binding agent, but only tapioca starch, which made the cooking more simple and didn’t disturb the fragrant dill aroma.

Sliced Vietnamese fishcakes after steaming.

A Few Notes Before You Cook

The ingredients: Some of them are also indicated in gram because I did measure them, as a teaspoon/tablespoon can vary according to different people.
Baking powder: In the cookbook I referred to, baking powder is used as a raising agent and hold the fishcake’s shape better. I’m not sure because I think the tapioca starch did the binding job, and I don’t know how much it did raise as I never compared one without baking powder, despite the cookbook saying the baking powder is widely used in Vietnamese food.
Fish: In the cookbook, haddock and monkfish are recommended, but I used basa fillets because that’s what I had on hand.
Colour: Some recipes mention the fishcake’s colour should be white, so not to blitz the dill with the fish together. The colour doesn’t bother me much, even if it’s greenish. I just wanted it to be golden after pan-searing!

Now, let’s dive into the recipe.

Vietnamese Fishcakes with Dill Recipe

It may looks a lot to do, but a blender can save you time. Shape and steam for a few minutes, and there you go!

Ingredients

Serves 4 as a Soup Noodles Toppings

450 g frozen basa fillets (400 g after thawed), chopped into big chunks
15 g fresh dill
1 large round shallot, chopped
1 fresh red chilli, deseeded and chopped
1 tbsp tapioca starch (9 g)
2 tsp sugar
1 ¼ tsp baking powder
2 tbsp fish sauce (20 g)
2 tbsp oil (17 g)
¼ tsp white pepper

Making of Vietnamese fishcakes with dill.

How to Make Vietnamese Fishcakes with Dill

Place all the ingredients into a blender and blitz into a fine paste. Then put the mixture into the fridge for an hour or so, as this can help firm up the texture and holding the shape.
Put around 1 tbsp of oil in a small bowl/plate to standby. Oil your hands, divide the fish paste into 3 portions, and shape it into a palm-sized patty. Remember to oil your hands each time before shaping, otherwise it’ll stick to your hands. You will then have 3 fishcakes. Place them on a plate.
Use a steamer or large pan/wok, steam the fishcakes for 5 minutes. Pierce the fishcake with a skewer or chopstick. If it comes clean, it means it’s cooked through. Then let it cool down.
There are various ways to handle fishcakes. You can deep-fry the fishcake without slicing, or first slice it into your desired thickness (Mine was about 1 cm thick), then pan-sear it with a relatively generous amount of oil till golden. The other way is to poach them in broth for soup noodles.
You can freeze the fishcakes for future use. If you’re like me, can’t wait for so long, then put them into the fridge and enjoy the next 1 to 2 days.

Another Recipe to Enjoy the Fishcakes

It’s a Korean recipe — stir-fried fishcakes with green peppers.

Start by cooking half onion till softened. Add in 2 cloves of minced garlic along with the fish cakes, green peppers. Let them cook for a few minutes to soften the peppers. Cover with a lid if required. Finish with adding 2 tbsp of cooking sake (or mirin) , 1 tsp of sugar and 1 ½ tbsp of soy sauce. Sprinkle over toasted sesame seeds before serving.