Fish Balls

This recipe is one that you are going to have to trust me when I tell you that the finished result tastes so yummy. I've been making these for at least 20 years and my family love them.

Cast of characters

• 1 tin Home Brand Australian Salmon - this stuff looks disgusting but it is the only salmon that works for this recipe. Fancy expensive tinned salmon does not have the right flavour.
• 250g Brown rice
• 250g - 300g Grated tasty cheese
• Grated parmesan - I used about 1/2 a cup tonight
• Breadcrumbs
• Eggs
• Plain flour (not in photo)

Step 1
Boil rice in a large saucepan until tender but not soft and mushy. Drain and leave to cool. If you are in a hurry you can cool the rice by running cold water through it in the colander. Return the well drained rice to the saucepan. You could use a bowl for the next steps but to me that's just another thing to wash up.

Step 2
Open the salmon and drain. I rest the strainer in a dessert plate to catch any further drips while I pick through the salmon. This salmon is definitely the stuff that John West rejects and I only ever buy it to make these fish balls.

Pull the salmon apart and remove all the bones, don't expect to find nice delicate little bones like in the expensive stuff either. These bones have more of a dinosaur quality to them. Remove all the skin by sliding it off with your fingers and also remove any of the dark brown bit of salmon the same way.

After all the skin, bones and yukky bits have been removed flake the salmon using your fingers and add to the rice in the saucepan.

Add the cheeses and two eggs and using your hands mix thoroughly. At this stage you can decide if you want to add more cheese or salmon. I never measure anything and tonight I had more rice than I thought I would so I added another can of salmon, a bit more cheese and another egg and mixed it all through. The mixture should be kind of wet. If you can't form a ball that will hold its shape adding another egg and mixing it through should fix the problem.

Step 3
Form mixture into balls, squeezing your hands together to make sure the balls are firm. Roll in flour, then egg and finally breadcrumbs.

Step 4
I deepfry them for 5 minutes or until golden brown. If I didn't have a deepfryer I would mould them into patties rather than balls and then fry them in a frying pan.

The finished product

Here is one opened up, its hard to see but the cheese is all melty inside.

Review
Because these are quite messy to make I like to make more than I need and I freeze the extras before the deepfrying step.

The fish balls are ok to be reheated but you don't get the melty cheese effect like when they are freshly cooked.

My son also likes these cold, in fact he likes them best cold.