I have been enjoying making my own fresh Thai curry pastes ever since I discovered how easy they were to make. Since they keep well in the freezer I almost always have some on hand. I recently made a new batch of red curry paste and I was looking for some new recipes to try using some of it in. One dish that I kept coming across was tod mun pla or Thai fish cakes that used red curry paste in the cake mixture. Some of the things that I liked about the tod mun pla recipes were that they included a green vegetable in the form of long beans and that they also used a lot of fresh herbs. The fish cakes promised to be really tasty all by themselves but I found that they were often served with a cucumber dipping sauce which also sounded good. Many of the recipes that I came across called for fish paste but I decided to just use some chopped up white fish which in this case was tilapia. The fish cakes were pretty easy to make. You pretty much just mix everything, form patties and fry them in oil until golden brown. You could deep fry the fish cake but I chose to shallow fry them as it would be easier. The tod mun pla were really tasty! I was right, they were packed with so much flavour that they hardly needed the dipping sauce but it provided some nice contrasting flavours and textures. The fish cakes had a nice crispy outside and the insides were nice and warm and soft and moist. I really liked the freshness that the herbs brought to the cakes and overall they were a really nice light meal.
Tod Mun Pla (Thai Fish Cakes)
ingredients
- 1 pound white fish (cut into small pieces)
- 1 egg (lightly beaten)
- 1/2 cup long beans (thinly sliced)
- 3 kaffir lime leaves (thinly sliced)
- 1 birds eye chili (thinly sliced)
- 1 green onion (thinly sliced)
- 2 tablespoons cilantro (chopped)
- 2 tablespoons Thai red curry paste
- 1 tablespoon fish sauce
- 1 tablespoon lime juice
- peanut oil for frying
directions
- Mix everything for the cakes in a large bowl by hand until sticky.
- Form into small 3 inch diameter cakes.
- Fry in oil until golden brown on both sides.
Cucumber Dipping Sauce
ingredients
- 1/4 cup water
- 2 tablespoons white vinegar
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- 1/2 cucumber (seeded and sliced)
- 1 birds eye chili (thinly sliced)
- 1 green onion (thinly sliced)
- 1 tablespoon cilantro (chopped)
- 1 tablespoon peanuts (roasted and finely chopped)
directions
- Heat the water, vinegar and sugar in a sauce pan until the sugar dissolves.
- Allow the vinegar mixture to cool.
- Mix everything.
Great recipe! Thai food always uses good fresh ingredients!
This looks so good! I love all the flavors!
I love Thai Fish Cakes!! This photo is really tempting!Nice shot.
that is one amazing plate of colors! heavenly 🙂
This fish cakes look awesome!!!! I'm liking that cucumber sauce a lot!!!
The presentation is really eye catching.
Good eats!
great festive dish! we love fish cakes and this dipping sauce looks great.
Yes,Thai food is amazing..Your fishcakes looks mouthwatering..
How delicious and creative. Great pictures as always!
Wow! I love fish cakes/fish balls. I like the combination of the fish cakes w/ the cucumber sauce. Beautiful pics as usual.
A dish I really love! Thai food is awesome… Your dish looks really wonderful!
Cheers,
Rosa
I like this one. The Thai red or green curry paste goes well with shrimps and other seafood too.
Yum! Looks great! Time for a Thai dinner party!
The fish cakes look delicious but that cucumber sauce is calling my name. Mmmmm.
A great classic, always so tasty, ans so much better homemade, nice one 🙂
Beautiful presentation! I love the flavors here.
What a nice display!
These looks very flavourful and fresh, great job Kevin!!!
You have a blog full of great recipes and I wanted to let you know that I have an award waiting on my blog for you to collect. Cheers!
Nice. We love any fish in a cake. This one has a lot of great flavors. Love the kaffir limes.
Those fish cakes look really pretty… and honestly, maybe I'm just crazy, but I would choose a good fish cake over a hamburger patty any day!! I wonder if you could make some sort of sandwich with this… maybe stick it in a mushu pancake or something to make a wrap??
Great recipe Kevin, those Thai fishcakes sound packed full of great flavours.
Wow, this is nice…never had Thai fish cake…I am sure that will really like it, since all the ingredients in it sounds very yummie.
You know, Kevin, we always have Thai curry paste around… but these are something I never think to make. Seems a shame… they sound positively delicious.
Kudos for making your own curry paste!
Kevin – Would you recommend the Big Book of Thai curries?
That's a good recipe for me Kevin, because Tilapia is the only kind of fish I like!
Yeah!
Oh, I LOVE fish cakes ordered from the Thai restaurant, so I know that I would devour these. I can't believe how easy your recipe sounds! I like that you pan fried them, too. I love that cucumber dipping sauce, also. YUM, Kevin, YUM!
I really need to try making my own curry paste. These look good, kind of like a thai version of crab cakes!
Beautiful photo! These sounds so tasty and the cucumber sounds like the perfect way to cool off your mouth.
Lo: Yes I would recommend The Big Book of Thai Curries. I have it and I really enjoy it. It has recipes for a bunch of Thai curry pastes at the front and then tons of recipes that use them later on.
Delicious looking fish cakes!
Greetings,
Tiina
Oh my word Kevin your presentation is gorgeous!!
I love thai food and have bookmarked fish cakes for years. I always thought they looked kind of difficult.
I like the addition of the cucumbers in the dipping sauce!
Kevin, we made these yesterday along with your quinoa and asparagus salad and they were delicious – thanks for a great recipe.
I tried this tonight, and even though I didn't have cilantro or kaffir lime leaves on hand, it was delicious!
I tried these today and loved them. I always liked these in restaurants but never made them myself. I replaced the egg with a table spoon of ground flaxseed and shallow fried in a mixture of coconut oil and olive oil. This is a keeper thanks for posting.
Jessica Woodbury: Glad you enjoyed it!