PREPARATION

1. Start with the cucumber pickle. Peel the cucumber with a vegetable peeler (or a cheese grater) in ribbons and finely chop the red onion. Add a couple of tbsp of vinegar, a pinch of salt and sugar and massage the liquid into the cucumber and red onion for a minute or 2. Keep it in the fridge until the rest of your dinner is ready.
2. Make the dipping sauce by mixing everything together.
3. It will save you loads of time if you have a food processor. Start with adding chunks of ginger, garlic, chilli, spring onion, rougly chopped lemongrass, coriander stalks and lime zest and pulse until it is finely chopped. Add chunks of the white fish to the food processor and pulse a few times until the white fish is chopped into small pieces. Whisk the egg white until it becomes a bit airy and spoon it into the fish mixture and add a pinch of salt and pepper, the sugar and fish sauce. If you don’t use a food processor: Finely chop the white fish and add grated ginger and garlic, finely chopped lemon grass, chilli pepper, spring onion, coriander stalks, the fish sauce, lime zest, sugar, whisked egg white and season with salt and pepper. Mix everything together and form Ping-Pong size balls.
4. Heat a generous layer of oil in a frying pan and once hot, turn the fire to medium high. Fry a little piece of your fish cake first. Taste and see if it needs more of one of the above ingredients such as a pinch of salt, fish sauce etc. This is the time to adjust the fish cakes if necessary. Add the fish cakes to the frying pan, flatten them out with a spatula and fry for 2-3 minutes on both sides.
5. Serve the fish cakes hot with coriander leaves, the dipping sauce, steamed green vegetables, noodles and the cucumber pickle on the side.
6. Note: You can make the fish cakes ahead of time and reheat them in the oven on 180C for 10-15 minutes.