Golden asian fish cakes with spicy slaw

Tuesday night dinner with the girls is, reliably, one of my favorite nights of the week. You get to unwind, eat great food, gossip and (inevitably) watch the Food Network (or a Victorian Christmas special, whichever).

This past Tuesday we decided to make a light and healthy meal – lemongrass fish cakes and spicy Asian cole slaw. Both were inspired by this recipe but with a few key alterations.

Make the slaw first to let it infuse with all the flavors and so that you can have the fishcakes hot right off the pan with sweet chili dipping sauce.

As you can see, for the spicy slaw you will need the following (amounts will differ according to how much you want to make, we made a bowlful:

• baby bok choy (hard to get right now so we used a combination of sweet cabbage for the crunch and little gem lettuce – the lettuce can get a bit soggy so it is really best to use it in combination with some kind of cabbage if you are using it at all)
• 2 carrots
• 1 apple (medium-sweet – Jazz worked really well)
• juice of 1 lime
• a handful of basil, chopped
• 1 finely chopped shallot
• a spoon of sugar
• a spoon of chili sauce (we used buffalo wing sauce actually)
• a bit of salt

Julienne, pulse or expertly slice/grate cabbage, carrots and apple. You really want all of the vegetables to give off as much of their natural flavors and juices as possible.

In a big bowl, layer the ingredients, handful by handful, then add the seasonings (lime juice, sauce, sugar, salt) and toss well. Set aside while you are preparing the fishcakes.

You will need the following ingredients for the fishcakes:

Combine all of the ingredients in a food processor and pulse until smooth. Season with salt and pepper and form into about 8-9 fishcakes. Heat oil in a large skillet and cook each fishcake about 5-7 minutes on each side.

p.s. we also made apple crumble with the leftover apples – a super easy recipe of whatever amounts you have of  melted butter (about 1/4 stick), (half cup of) brown sugar and (about a cup of) flour tossed to combine and layered on top of sliced, cored apples and cinnamon sticks with the top of the crumble drizzled with a tiny bit of leftover butter and honey. Baked in a 170C oven about 30-35minutes.

Anyway, there are no pictures because we ate it all with vanilla ice-cream. Rather quickly.