Walking out to my truck late yesterday afternoon neighbor Gerald, who’s birthday shindig dinner I mentioned here a couple of weeks ago, yelled something over that I couldn’t quite understand (he’s a for-the-most-part spry 90 but not as loud as I assume he once was…).
I set the load of gear I was carrying down and wandered over.
Gerald stood on his porch, waving me into his house, all the time saying, “C’mon in, c’mon in, you’ve got to try Pat’s redfish cakes”. One of Gerald’s kids (approaching 70 herself per the story) was just back into town with a “mess of redfish” caught the day before in Mobile Bay.
Before my eyes had adjusted to indoor light I’d been handed a big glass of sweet tea and a plate with two golden brown redfish cakes speckled with green, yellow and red bits of vegetable goodness sitting by a big dollop of home-made tartar sauce. And a lemon wedge.
One bite and I was instantly transported back decades (dammit, nearly five decades!) to my grandmother’s (Mama, pronounced maw-maw) fishing camp at the mouth of the Colorado River in Texas.
As a kid we weren’t allowed into the cramped corner of the wood-framed building that served as the kitchen, though I do remember watching Mama finely chop onions and peppers and cooking up the fish that was eventually gently patted into cakes, dipped in cracker crumbs and fried in butter.
It was even better than it sounds and the fish had always been swimming a few hours beforehand. We would eat her fish cakes and fried shrimp till we nearly exploded and then top it off with a slice of pound cake and lemon jelly (curd) cobbled together earlier that afternoon.
As fond a memory as Mama’s fishcakes are, to be absolutely honest, Pat’s Redfish Cakes were even better, having a bit more of a cajun-spicy edge. (These would be absolutely dynamite with catfish, flounder, probably even tilapia as long as you prepared the fish with a spicy rub…).
Four redfish cakes, two glasses of sweet tea and loading the dishwasher later I was out the door and on the way to finish my errands, recipe in hand.
This one deserves a ‘hot damn’.
1 sleeve saltine crackers (Pat says use the good ones)
3 tbsp. butter
1/4 cup diced yellow bell pepper
1/4 cup diced green bell pepper
1/4 cup diced red bell pepper
1/4 cup finely chopped green onions
6-7 medium sized redfish fillets, dusted with cajun spice mix and fried
4 eggs, beaten lightly
1 and 1/2 tbsp. green Tabasco
1 and 1/2 tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
Salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste
Olive oil and butter to brown the cakes in
Get ready. Process (food processor) the crackers to crumbs and pour into bowl. Prep the vegetables and gather the rest of the goods; note you’ll have prefried redfish fillets.
Sauté time. Melt the 3 tbsp. butter in your cast iron skillet (like Mama and Pat) and sauté the peppers and onions until soft. Set aside to cool a bit.
Make those cakes. Crumble the fried (and cooled) fish into a bowl; you can use a fork to mash it up as well. Add the eggs, Tabasco, Worcestershire, salt and pepper; now mix the vegetable mixture in well.
Pat into 8 to 10 cakes (Pat says 3 inches by 1.5 inches, Mama made hers about 3/4 inch thick) and dredge each cake in cracker crumbs – make sure to get both sides.
Brown ‘em up. Heat a mixture of olive oil and butter (Pat uses a scant 1/4 cup olive oil and 2 tbsp. butter) in your trusty cast iron; cook your redfish cakes 4 at a time until perfectly golden brown and crispy. Mama insisted that you drain them on paper bags as they cooled a bit.
Serve with a lemon wedge or two and a big dollop of your favorite tarter sauce. And don’t forget a big sweet tea or any other adult beverage you can think of.
Enjoy.
