Sierra Leonean Fish Cakes

Hello fellow foodies and fashionistas.  Welcome to TCW and thanks for visiting.   Today I am sharing another street food from Sierra Leone.  So today lady mother in law came over for a visit after church and had to modify my recipe.  The only problem is that she arrived after I had already finished cooking.  I was so chuffed to present her with my fish cakes only for her to take one bite and tell me that I had one ingredient too many in the recipe.  

Lady MIL: Did you add baking powder?

Me: Yeeeeeah?

Lady MIL: Hmmmm, I knew it.   Next time skip it because it makes the fish cakes look more like pancakes and you don't want that.

Me: Okay Ma, if only you had arrived earlier we would not be in this situation but I will share it and let my readers know that the baking powder is not necessary. 

Anywho, this fish cake is one of those afternoon snacks we use to buy from hawkers after school. You could hear them coming from afar shouting hoooot fish cake or fish cake dae, and we would have our monies ready so we can get some to enjoy while we walked home with our friends oh the nostalgia of it all.

Here we go, the ingredients I used are: 500gm Pink Ling (you can use any white fish.  In Sierra Leone we used herrings), 1/2 medium sized brown onion, 1 chili, 2 cups plain flour, 2 1/2 cups water, salt, 1 1/2 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp tomato paste and oil for frying.

 Cut the fish into cubes and season with salt

 Then chop onions and chili

 In a large bowl mix the flour and baking powder (remember the baking powder is not necessary except if you don't want it to look too flat)

Then whisk in the water to form a batter

 Then add 1 tsp tomato paste (this is just for color) and salt to taste

 Then add the chopped onions and chili

 Whisk to combine

Then add the fish (lady MIL said you can steam the fish which saves you from worrying whether the fish is properly cooked or not)

 Mix it through the batter

 Then deep fry in hot oil till golden brown

 Drain on paper towel

 And voila! Fish cakes a-plenty! Enjoy.