Sma Fiskefrikadeller med Remoulade

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Food processor (or a sharp knife and a steady hand)
• •Heavy frying pan, 28cm
• •Two metal spoons for shaping
• •Microplane or fine grater for the lemon zest

Instructions

1. 1

   Make the remoulade first

   Stir the mayonnaise together with the chopped cornichons, capers, Dijon, curry powder, dill, sugar, and a squeeze of lemon juice. Taste it. It should be tangy, gently sweet, with a soft warmth from the curry sitting underneath. Cover and put it in the fridge while you make the cakes. Remoulade is always better after thirty minutes in the cold. The flavors lean into each other and become a single thing instead of a list of ingredients.

   Danish remoulade is yellow, not white. The curry powder is what gives it the color and the gentle warmth. Don't skip it.
2. 2

   Mince the cod

   Pat the cod fillet very dry with kitchen paper. Wet fish makes a wet mixture, and a wet mixture falls apart in the pan. Cut the fish into rough chunks and pulse it in a food processor until you have a coarse mince. Stop before it becomes a paste. You want texture, not puree. If you don't have a processor, chop it finely by hand with a sharp knife. The hand-chopped version is actually closer to how Danish home cooks made these for a hundred years before food processors existed.

3. 3

   Build the fiskefarce

   Tip the minced cod into a bowl. Add the grated onion, the egg, the flour, the salt, white pepper, lemon zest, and the chopped dill. Mix it together with a wooden spoon until everything is evenly distributed. Now add the sparkling water in a slow stream while you keep stirring. The mixture will lighten and puff slightly as the bubbles work through it. This is the moment that matters. The bubbles create tiny air pockets that survive the frying, and the result is a cake that's light instead of dense. Still water gives you something heavier and a little sad. Sparkling water gives you the texture you actually want.

   The mixture should be soft and just spoonable, not runny. If it feels too loose, add another spoonful of flour. If it feels stiff, add a splash more sparkling water.
4. 4

   Rest the mixture

   Cover the bowl and put it in the fridge for at least twenty minutes. The flour needs time to absorb the moisture, and the cold firms the fat in the mixture so the cakes hold their shape when they hit the pan. Don't skip this step. A rested mixture fries cleanly. An unrested one spreads and tears.

5. 5

   Shape the small cakes

   Wet two spoons in a bowl of cold water. Scoop the mixture with one spoon and use the other to shape it into a small oval, about the size of a walnut. The wet spoons stop the mixture from sticking. These are the cocktail size, not the dinner size, so keep them small enough to lift in two fingers. Lay each shaped cake on a plate as you go.

   Flatten each cake slightly between your palms before it goes in the pan. They aren't round balls. They're oval and a little flat, which gives you more crisp surface, and the surface is where the flavor concentrates.
6. 6

   Fry in butter and oil

   Heat the butter and oil together in a heavy frying pan over medium heat. Butter alone burns before the centers cook through. Oil alone tastes like nothing. Together they give you the golden crust and the nutty richness that makes these taste right. When the butter is foaming and starting to smell faintly of hazelnuts, lay the cakes in the pan in a single layer with space around each one. Don't crowd them. Crowded cakes steam instead of fry, and the crust never forms. Cook for about three minutes on the first side until the underside is deep golden, then flip and cook for two to three minutes more. Work in batches and add a little more butter between rounds.

7. 7

   Serve warm with the remoulade

   Lift the finished cakes onto a warm plate and let them rest for a minute while you fry the next batch. Arrange them on a long platter with the bowl of cold remoulade in the middle and lemon wedges around the edge. Scatter a little extra dill over the top. Serve them warm, with cocktail picks if you like, though Danish hands tend to reach in directly. They are also wonderful at room temperature, packed in a tin and taken to the coast, which is how my own summers tend to find them.

Chef Tips

• •Use the freshest cod you can find, ideally from the fish counter rather than the freezer. Frozen cod releases water as it thaws, and water is the enemy of a fiskefarce that holds together. If frozen is what you have, defrost it slowly in the fridge and pat it very dry before mincing.
• •Sparkling water, not milk, not cream. This is the detail that separates a light Danish fish cake from a dense one. The bubbles survive the frying. Trust the process.
• •Make the remoulade the day before if you can. It deepens overnight in the fridge and tastes more like itself the next day. Good homemade remoulade keeps for a week.
• •These travel well. Fry them in the morning, cool them on a rack, pack them in a tin lined with parchment, and take them to the coast. Cold fiskefrikadeller with remoulade and a piece of rugbrod is one of the most quietly perfect summer lunches in the Danish kitchen.

Advance Preparation

• •The remoulade can be made up to three days ahead and kept covered in the fridge. The flavor improves with time.
• •The fiskefarce can be mixed and rested in the fridge up to four hours before frying. Any longer and the texture starts to change.
• •Fully fried cakes keep for two days in the fridge. Bring them back to room temperature before serving, or warm them gently in a low oven for five minutes. Never the microwave.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 137g)