A flavourful fish cakes recipe: salmon cakes with sauce remoulade

I've only recently come to appreciate fish cakes, having been traumatised by the really bad versions (using canned tuna) served in the dining halls of my university. When made with good-quality products - whether it's bacalao (salt cod, which is, unfortunately, difficult to find in Hong Kong) or salmon - fish cakes should taste of the main ingredient and shouldn't contain too much 'filler'.

Salmon cakes with sauce remoulade

Most salmon cake recipes call for expensive fillet, but I found a great (and much cheaper) alternative at Fresh Mart in the basement of Sogo in Causeway Bay. The fish section had what was labelled 'salmon bones' but were actually skinless, boneless scraps and trimmings of the fish (be warned, though, some of the packets labelled bones were actually bones, which should be used for fish soup). Many of these salmon trimmings had the brown flesh that you find next to the skin of the fish, but the colour doesn't affect the taste and the meat is still good. You should be able to find salmon trimmings at other shops that sell a lot of fresh fish (such as Apita and Jusco). You can substitute other types of fish, but choose flakey varieties, and nothing too meaty, such as tuna or monkfish. If you're feeling extravagant, use chilled crab meat instead of fish.

I make my own remoulade (which is basically a flavoured mayonnaise) because I love the slow process of making emulsified sauces. If you prefer, though, mix 200 grams of Hellmann's mayonnaise with the herbs, capers, cornichons and anchovy paste.

For the salmon cakes:

500 grams boneless, skinless salmon scraps

2 bay leaves