The Friday before Easter is known as Karfreitag or “Sorrowful Friday”, and traditionally people eat fish for dinner with their family.
Ingredients:
2 potatoes, peeled
1 onion, halved
300 g white fish fillets, skinned
150 g smoked fish fillets, skinned
a little flour for dusting
some canola oil for shallow frying
sea salt and freshly ground pepper
For the sauce:
about 60 g of fresh green herbs such as parsley, chives, chervil, dill, marjoram, sorrel, coriander, basil, tarragon or baby spinach
3 tablespoons quark (or sour cream)
2 tablespoons milk
2 tablespoons mayonnaise
2 teaspoons sweet German mustard
2 hard-boiled eggs, chopped roughly
Directions:
1. Coarsely grate the potatoes and squeeze our excess water. Coarsely grate the onion; mix half into the potato and reserve half for the sauce.
2. Check both fish for fine bones then chop roughly and place in a food processor with some freshly ground black pepper. Blend to a smooth paste then scoop out and mix with the grated potato and onion. Add a little salt if liked — you can check the seasonings by frying a small amount first. Shape into 8 round cakes.
3. Make the sauce. Wash out the food processor and blend your chosen mixture of herbs, until finely chopped. Add the rest of the ingredients including the reserved onion, chopped eggs and seasoning to taste.
4. Blend to a slightly chunky puree — not velvety smooth, it should have a little texture. Check the seasoning and spoon into a bowl.
5. Dust the fish cakes lightly with flour. Heat some oil to a depth of 1/2 inch and fry the fish cakes in batches for about 3 minutes each on a medium heat. Drain on paper towels and reheat the oil between the batches. Serve the fish cakes with the sauce and a fresh tomato salad.
