I visited my friend, Deb, a while back and, as I was leaving, she handed me several recipes. “You might like to try these”, she said. Deb likes to read recipes – she is not quite so keen on cooking them:)
One of the recipes caught my eye because it required spinach. We are overwhelmed with silverbeet, at the moment, and I thought we could replace the spinach with silverbeet.
Maus actually made the patties. We have demarcation lines in this house. Maus is the patty and fritter maker. Maus changed the recipe slightly: she added more potato and cheese, replaced a shallot with spring onions and shallow fried, rather than baked them.
This recipe is from taste.com.au. Here is the original if you are interested. This is what Maus did. They tasted great with salad.
Ingredients:
- 3-4 potatoes, peeled and chopped
- 1 tbs milk
- 250g frozen spinach, thawed, excess liquid removed or 250g fresh silverbeet, steamed until just wilted, excess liquid removed
- 185g can tuna, drained
- ⅓ cup cheddar cheese, coarsely grated
- 3 spring onions, thinly sliced
- 1 tsp lemon rind, finely grated
- 1 egg, lightly beaten
To coat:
- 1 egg
- 1 tbs milk
- plain flour
- dried breadcrumbs
Method:
- Cook the potatoes in a saucepan of salted boiling water until tender. Drain.
- Add 1 tbs of milk and mash the potatoes until smooth. Set aside to cool.
- Add the spinach/silverbeet, tuna, cheese, spring onions, lemon rind and egg to the potatoes.
- Season generously with salt and pepper. Stir to combine.
- Whisk 1 tbs milk and an egg in a bowl. Place the flour and breadcrumbs on separate plates.
- Shape ¼ cup of potato mixture into a patty. Repeat with remaining mixture.
- Dip 1 patty in the flour, coat. Shake off excess flour.
- Dip in egg mixture then coat in breadcrumbs.
- Heat oil in frying pan and shallow fry until golden.
Passion Fruit Garden 
OK, there’s a new one – Silverbeet. Do you have any idea why this colorful (none of which is silver) non root producing veggie is called Silverbeet?
Beet because it is part of the beet family. Silver? no idea … what about … its leaves look silver in the sun reflecting off its white stems. Originally silverbeet only had white stems, now they are all colours. Howzat????
Yours tuna patties look better than the ones in taste.com. Maus did a fabulous job with getting them all so even. I’m generally not a fan of fish cakes; but I wouldn’t say no if you put one in front of me; with a homemade herby aioli.
Just got back from Philomena’s this morning after sharing black coffee and homemade grappa with her and Romano. I asked to take a look at her slicer. She can’t remember when she bought it; about 10 to 15 years ago at a guess. She remembers she bought it on the Gold Coast at Clive Anthony’s. There is no name on the machine. The brand is Phillips. It is made in Slovenia. Type HR 2700/A FD 9727. 220 -240 V. The blade has ‘Sollingen’ written on it and Romano thinks it’s made in Germany, but it wasn’t labelled. That’s all the info I could get I’m afraid. Hope it helps. It’ a ripper of a slicing machine.
Thanks Mariana
I LOVE fish cakes! I must try these, as we’re overrun with rainbow chard at the moment!
Hi Celia, I have a few recipes up my sleeve to use it up, keep tuned:)
Hi Glenda and Maureen
These sound delicious! We are going out tonight to a local restaurant which specializes in “Pastel”, a deep fried pastry with various fillings like cheese, palm flesh, minced meat etc. We tend to like the pastry but not so much the fillings. Although the palm flesh is not too bad and quite a novelty for us! Mexican tomorrow night and off to a restaurant for the second time called The Outback….it is unusual because the decor is all Aussie and great, the owners American and the food well….rather Brazilian/American with lots of meat! Vegetarians would starve here. Enjoying your blog. Love Us 2 Brazilian nuts…
Hi Faye, when are you coming home? It must be soon.
These sound very tasty! I also make tuna fish cakes but next time I will try adding the spinach and cheese.
Hi Sue, It was a good way to use up my silverbeet.