In this instructional video, the host demonstrates how to prepare a whole sockeye salmon, roast it in the oven with a water layer to keep it moist and aid skin removal, and then transform the cooked fish into flavorful salmon cakes. The process includes flaking the salmon, removing bones and skin, and mixing it with chopped onion, roasted red pepper, parsley, and seasonings such as Old Bay, salt, and pepper. An egg and breadcrumbs act as binders, while a homemade remoulade sauce—made from mayonnaise, Dijon mustard, olives, capers, pickle relish, scallions, hot sauce, Worcestershire, and lemon—is prepared to accompany the cakes. The host discusses variations (jerk or Cajun seasoning), cooking methods (pan‑fry or oven‑bake), storage tips (refrigerating, freezing, and reheating), and offers guidance on selecting high‑quality salmon (preferring wild Pacific sockeye over farmed Atlantic). Throughout, practical tips on moisture retention, avoiding overcooking, and ensuring safety with fish bones are shared, making the video a comprehensive guide to creating salmon cakes from scratch or leftovers.
Chapters
Thank you so much for coming, and let's get started. Let's start cooking some salmon. This is beautiful sockeye salmon, and it's still got the skin on it. I've got it floating in a little water. You might see I always like to put fish back in some water. It's probably the best salmon you can eat because of the nutrients and because it's wild. Caught its fish very sustainably, so it's good salmon to eat. Whenever I cook fish, I always put a layer of water— now this might be a little bit too much, but I did it earlier. Let me pour a little bit of it out. But I always put a little water in the bottom. Well, number one, it's going to help get the skin off, and when I take the skin off, it's not going to stick so much to the pan. And number two, when it cooks, the water is going to help keep it a little bit moister because there's going to be something for the heat to suck out. Besides just out of the fish itself. So whenever I put fish in the oven, just like if you were poaching fish, you would poach it in water, you wouldn't do it in a dry pan. So now I'm going to hit it with a little bit of olive oil, and then I'm going to do some salt. And don't be afraid to season your salmon up. People are always thinking, oh, I can't put too much seasoning on it, and it's really going to help it add some more flavor because fish by itself can be really bland. You need to pep it up with some other flavor. I'm going to put a little bit of lemon in here too, just because I can. And then this is going to go in the oven for about 12 to 15 minutes because you don't want to overcook it. You don't want it to get too dry. So let me pop that in. This is good. Let's say you're having a dinner party or you made a little too much salmon or someone didn't come home for dinner. You got cooked salmon. Well, what can you do with it? You can put it on a salad maybe, or do something else. But now you can make these salmon cakes. And really all you're gonna do is flake. Just try and get some flakes. And I'm really— I got some bones. I'm actually just gonna break this up with my fingers because it's a little easier. But you can see how it's flaking apart here. That's all we want it to do, is just flake. And there were a few little pin bones. And you know, the one important thing to remember is Fish got bones. Just be careful. You can see there's a little bit of skin still there. I'll get rid of that. For the most part, the skin came right off. Bones are sticking to you. This was sockeye salmon. I actually found it at Costco. I'm telling you, I don't work for Costco. I'm not getting anything from them, but they have become quite a great place to shop for organics and for better food. They're really starting to shine in healthy products and especially in organic products. This is beautiful sockeye salmon. Again, someone has said that is the most healthiest salmon you can get is sockeye. I'm not really sure why, but someone from Oregon told me that, and I got to believe them. It's pretty simple. We're going to start with this. If you have leftover salmon— I cooked this this morning, so it didn't sit that long.. But if it's from a day before or something, you could even freeze it until you had enough if you wanted to make some cakes out of it, or have it on a nice salad too, one of the two. I'm going to put in— and I'm going to make this almost like I make my crab cakes with a few minor additions. I'm going to put some chopped onion in here. I'm going to put some roasted red pepper, and you could use raw pepper if you wanted to. Again, I want some color. I'm going to add in some chopped parsley. Okay, and let me think. I think that's it. All right, let me just mix this up a little bit. So you can see right away we have some color and flavor going. It's good. Now we're going to add in some seasoning, and I'm going to add in some Old Bay. But you know, if you wanted to make them— take them a little bit of different direction, you could add in something else. You could put in a jerk seasoning. Or a Cajun seasoning. But I want these to be a little reminiscent of crab cakes, and that's why I'm using Old Bay. I'm going to put in just a little salt, not much because Old Bay is a little salty. A little bit of pepper. You can try, if you made them and say, hey, I wonder how they would taste with a jerk seasoning. I want to change up my remoulade a little bit. We're going to get to that and show you how easy that is too. Here I have some some Dijon mustard— trying to find which way the camera goes, there we go— Dijon mustard and mayonnaise. So that is the difference in how I normally make my imperial sauce for my crab cakes, is I don't use the Dijon. Salmon's a little stronger flavor, so I'm going to try and see if that'll help it out some. Putting my egg in, and that's a binder. Okay, I'm going to put another little squeeze of lemon in here. All right, and we're also going to add in a little bit of Worcestershire. And I've got a Florida hot sauce here, shaking it up. You can use a Louisiana hot, you can use whatever you want, but this has got just a little bit of fruit base in it too. So I don't want it to be too hot because I'm kind of a wuss, but this will work. I'm going to mix this all together. You could have made your imperial sauce separately and then put it all in. I'm just showing you that you can do it this way too. Usually when I do crab, because with crab I'm always afraid I'm going to make too much and it's going to get too wet. Then I'm going to add in some breadcrumbs. We're just going to let this sit. Absorb for a few minutes. My timer just went off. Here's the salmon coming out of the oven. What I'm going to do is I'm going to let this cool outside of the heat for about, outside of the oven for about 10 minutes, let it cool off. I'm going to transfer this to a small plate, put it in the refrigerator, and let it finish chilling. Mine was actually in there for only about an hour and it came out perfectly. I tend to think. It may flake a little easier if it's not completely gelled and together. So if you're making it specifically for this, you might want to break it up after about an hour or so because it might be easier. I haven't done this with leftover salmon yet, so that'll be something else to try. But in any case, it's a good way to use up other salmon and get some other tasty options. So that's it, it's done. And if you were having a dinner party, you could do this all ahead of time. Make your salmon cakes up ahead of time and then put them in the refrigerator even after you sauté them to pop in the oven to finish cooking. So that's that. And, uh, well, I'm gonna start with these, so I'm gonna turn my induction cooker on, and I'm just gonna grab a little handful of this and make a cake, a little out of it. Then I have some breadcrumbs here. What I did was I let them sit, and it's amazing how the moisture— the breadcrumbs soak up the moisture and they do firm up quite a bit. I just dredge them in a little bit of breadcrumbs, not a big coating but enough. You can do these in the oven if you want to, too. If you're saying, "Chef, I don't want to fry them." "these are beautiful, I don't want to get any more fat on them." That's fine. Do them in the oven, same way you would do a crab cake. This would also be a pretty good stuffing. Let me drop these in here. I'm just going to let these cook on both sides for a little bit. While they're cooking, I'm going to make a remoulade sauce. A remoulade sauce is basically a fancy tartar sauce. Here I have mayonnaise, Dijon, and let me tell you, I can taste that Dijon in the salmon and it's wonderful. That little bit of heat, I'm excited. I've actually not made these before. This is my first time. I hate to tell you. For my remoulade, I'm mixing together a variety of ingredients. You don't have to use any of them. You can make this like you want. I've got some olives in here. I have some chopped capers. I have some pickle relish. I have some scallions. There were a little bit of red pepper in the olive, but I'm going to add just a little bit more. And some parsley. Now we're going to add in just a little bit of hot sauce. Just a little. I want it to complement. And a little Worcestershire, a little more squeezed lemon. And let me turn these cakes. He's got just a little bit overcooked, but not bad. All right, so everything in there, and then we're just going to mix this up. And I'm going to add probably a little bit more mayonnaise to this, but that's basically it. You know what you could add into it too? You could add a little sour cream or— let's see if I can get this a little better— or a little bit of a yogurt. But that's, you know, instead of just a plain tartar sauce. This was just a little bit too hot. I will make some more. You can see salmon is, you know, we'll serve it when we go to serve with a little bit of Sauce in the corner. There you go. And, you know, easy enough to put together. You put a little bit of sprig of parsley on it or even around the plate. Dress it up with a little bit of scallion. You can use whatever salmon. You can use canned salmon. You can use whatever salmon you find in the market. Just be a little careful about the salmon you're buying. A lot of this Atlantic salmon from our side of the pond is not always something you want to eat all the time. It's farmed. I think the Scottish variety is better, but some of our salmon, it just contains the levels of some of the things it contains are a little high. So whenever you can get Pacific salmon, you know, that is definitely the way to go. You can make these You can freeze them. I would sauté them a little on both sides. If you're going to freeze them, then freeze them and take them out when you want to eat. Just don't cook them too long. Or if you're doing a dinner party, like I said, you can make up 20 of these ahead of time very simply and finish them in the oven when your party's here.
