Tod Man Pla Thai Fish Cakes Updated

Tod Man Pla Thai Fish Cakes

Tod Mun Pla, or Thai Fish Cakes, are loaded with the flavors of lemongrass, cilantro, and hot chiles. This recipe uses Thai curry paste, which provides layers of flavor without requiring a ton of ingredients.

Thai fish cakes piled on a plate with a bowl of sweet chili dipping sauce and lime wedges in the background

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When I swallow at Thai restaurants, I always order tod mun pla. The savory Thai fish cakes are intensely flavored with all the Thai ingredients I dear—lemongrass, cilantro, chiles, and fish sauce. But ane society is never enough!

These Thai fish cakes are easy to make at home and they don't even require a lot of special ingredients. You can shallow fry them in a regular skillet using just about ½ cup of oil rather than deep-frying them.

What practice Thai fish cakes taste like?

Tod Mun Pla are fabricated with balmy white fish that is ground to a paste forth with seasonings including Thai curry paste, cilantro, and fish sauce. They are commonly as well studded with thinly sliced green beans for a chip of textural contrast.

The curry paste is the strongest flavor chemical element, giving the fish cakes complex flavour layers from spicy chiles to fruity makrut lime peel and herby lemongrass.

If you honey the flavors of Thai curries, you lot will honey this easy Thai fish cakes recipe!

Overhead shot of the ingredients: cilantro, catfish, corn starch, chilies, lime leaves, curry paste, and egg.

What ingredients do you need?

A lot of Thai cooking requires long lists of ingredients, simply not this piece of cake recipe! Here's what you lot need:

White fish (cod, catfish, haddock, pollock, grouper, snapper, etc.)
Cilantro
Thai back-scratch paste (red or green)
Egg white
Makrut lime leaves (these are optional)
Fish sauce
Chocolate-brown sugar (or palm sugar)
Cornstarch
Chinese long beans or green beans, such as blue lake beans
Cooking oil

How practice you brand them?

This tod mun pla recipe is surprisingly easy to make. Here are the steps:

In a food processor, combine the fish, cilantro, curry paste, lime leaves (optional), fish sauce, and saccharide and pulse to purée the mixture into a mucilaginous paste.
Add together a little cornstarch and pulse to comprise.
Stir in the sliced green beans.
Rut near ½-inch of oil in a skillet over medium-high heat.
Form the paste into patties about 2 ½ to 3 inches across and about ½-inch thick.
Fry the patties for a infinitesimal or two on each side, until crisp and deep golden brown.
Drain on a newspaper towel-lined plate and serve hot with Prik Nam Pla or Sweet Thai Chili Dipping Sauce.

thai fish cakes formed and ready to be fried on a white plate

Tod Mun pla frequently asked questions

What kind of fish should yous use to brand tod mun pla?

Cooks in Thailand use a specific blazon of starchy fish to make these fish cakes. The fish is browbeaten with wooden sticks to release the starch and give the fish cakes their classic springy texture. That type of fish isn't available in the The states, though. You tin can use whatever white fish every bit a substitute. I like to utilize catfish. You can likewise apply tilapia, snapper, or cod. To create a similar springy texture to the accurate recipe, grind the fish to a paste in a nutrient processor, adding an egg white.

What do y'all serve with Tod Mun Pla fish cakes?

In restaurants, you'll usually see Tod Mun Pla or fish cakes equally an titbit. Just when I make them at home, we usually have them every bit an entrée for dinner.
I offering Prik Nam Pla or a Sweet Thai Chili Dipping Sauce or store-bought Sweet Chili Sauce alongside, as well as steamed rice or sticky rice and a simple vegetable. In my house, more often than not, this ways steamed broccoli.
The fish cakes are and so flavorful that simple sides are all you need.

About Thai curry paste

Thai curry paste is a mixture of chiles, herbs, garlic, shallots, galangal, and usually shrimp paste. You tin continue curry paste in your refrigerator and ever take the makings of a complexly flavored Thai meal at the set.

There are many unlike types of Thai curry paste, but the ones you'll see well-nigh oft autumn into the categories of red back-scratch paste, green curry paste, and yellow back-scratch paste. These all share some mutual ingredients but get their unique colors, along with dissimilar flavors and oestrus levels, by incorporating dissimilar ingredients.

Red curry paste, which is usually considered the hottest of the Thai curry pastes, gets its color from a base of dried red chiles. Information technology also normally includes garlic, shallots, lemongrass, galangal, makrut lime leaves or zest, and shrimp paste.

Dark-green curry paste gets its color from fresh green chiles and is generally milder and sweeter than red back-scratch paste. It also normally includes garlic, galangal, lemongrass, makrut lime zest or leaves and shrimp paste. Light-green back-scratch paste also usually includes cumin, coriander seed, and turmeric.

Yellow curry paste is the mildest of the iii. It uses yellow chiles as well equally turmeric as a primary ingredient, which gives it a bright yellow colour. Other ingredients include lemongrass, galangal, shallots, makrut lime peel, and spices like coriander seeds, cumin, cinnamon, mace, and cardamom.

What are the all-time brands of Thai back-scratch paste?

If you have an Asian market nearby, you'll probably find many choices of Thai back-scratch pastes there. Two of the most common brands are Mae Ploy and Maesri.

Mae Ploy curry pastes come in a plastic tub, making it like shooting fish in a barrel to tuck what you don't use into your fridge for use in other recipes.

Maesri curry pastes come up in cans, and so you'll have to transfer any extra to a jar or tub that is suitable for refrigerator storing.

I personally love Mae Ploy curry pastes because I find the packaging convenient and the flavors vivid, spicy, and delicious. Both Mae Ploy and Maesri are good quality products that will deliver tons of flavor to your Thai cooking.

If you don't have an Asian market place nearby, you can all the same likely discover Thai curry paste in a regular supermarket. The Thai Kitchen brand is widely available. This brand has good season, though it is much less spicy than either the Mae Ploy or Maesri brands or others that y'all'll find in specialty markets.

low angle shot of the dish with the sauce and limes in the background

What are makrut lime leaves?

Most Thai back-scratch pastes that you can buy accept makrut lime peel (often chosen kaffir lime peel, see below) in them. Many Thai recipes also phone call for makrut lime leaves. And then what are they?

Makrut limes expect like very bumpy limes. They are used for their zest or peels and the leaves of the tree are used as an herb in many Southeast Asian cuisines, similar to the way bay leaves are used in other cuisines.

The distinctive flavour of both the peel and zest is a mutual element in many Southeast Asian dishes. The flavor is brilliant and citrus-y. It also has a floral chemical element that distinguishes it from the limes and lemons we are used to in the west.

The whole leaves can be purchased fresh or frozen. They can be tough to find in United states markets, though, then whenever I encounter them, I purchase a agglomeration and stock up.

I store the fresh ones in resealable plastic bags in the refrigerator (they concluding forever) or buy them frozen and go along them in the freezer.

You tin can likewise grow makrut limes in your ain garden. Hither in California, citrus is piece of cake to grow and makrut lime trees are no different. The leaves can exist harvested and used yr-round.

Why are they sometimes called makrut limes and sometimes called kaffir limes?

For years, most recipe developers and writers in the Due west referred to this fruit as "kaffir lime." Now it is condign more than common to call information technology "makrut lime." It turns out that "kaffir" is a highly offensive racial slur in some parts of the world, so it'south time to stop using it.

Co-ordinate to an article on slate.com, "The Arabic wordkafirwas originally used to refer to non-Muslims, simply over the centuries it was adopted past white colonialists to describe black Africans."

Slate goes on to say that "By the twenty^th century, kaffir was widely understood to be a slur, and its power to insult and offend simply grew in apartheid-era South Africa."

Some have theorized that the name was used for this "ugly" fruit as an unfavorable comparison to black people.

But there is also an ethnic group in Sri Lanka known as Kaffir. And the name was used to refer to limes found in Sri Lanka in the late xix^th century.

Then the question is, is the namekaffir limederived from the racial slur, or is the fruit named subsequently Sri Lankan Kaffirs?

Nosotros'll probably never know the answer. But because the word "kaffir" is offensive to some, we should all simply finish using it.

In Southeast Asia, the fruit is more often than not known past its proper name, Makrut lime, so let'southward only call information technology that from at present on!

More Thai recipes you'll honey

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Prep Time xv minutes

Cook Time 10 minutes

Full Time 25 minutes

Ingredients

ane pound white fish fillet, cut into several pieces
¼ loving cup cilantro, plus additional for serving
1 to 3 tablespoons carmine or dark-green curry paste (see note)
1 egg white
4 makrut lime leaves, finely chopped
1 tablespoon fish sauce
one tablespoon brown sugar
2 tablespoons cornstarch
ane/four loving cup thinly sliced Chinese long beans (or sub green beans)
½ cup cooking oil (or enough to fill your skillet near ½-inch deep)
Lime wedges, for serving

Instructions

In a food processor, combine the fish, curry paste, egg white, fish sauce, and sugar and pulse until the mixture forms a thick paste. Add the cornstarch and pulse until it is well incorporated. Transfer the mixture to a bowl and stir in the sliced beans.
Heat the oil in a medium, heavy-bottomed skillet over medium-high estrus, until it shimmers.
Class the fish mixture into balls a trivial larger than golf assurance then flatten them into ½-inch-thick patties.
Add the patties to the skillet, 3 or 4 at a time. Cook for 1 to 2 minutes per side, until deep gold chocolate-brown. Transfer the cooked patties to a paper towel-lined plate to bleed. Repeat until all of the patties have been formed and fried.
Serve hot with lime wedges, cilantro, and Sweet Thai Chili Dipping Sauce, if desired.

Notes

one. Yous can use just about any white fish for this recipe. I've made it with both cod and catfish. Other options would be haddock, pollock, grouper, or snapper.

ii. You lot can use either red or green Thai curry paste in this recipe, though ruby-red is more common. I honey green curry paste, though, and think it works just besides in these fish cakes. I tested this recipe using Mae Ploy red curry paste and Mae Ploy green curry paste. I tablespoon of the red was enough, while I found the green (which is less spicy) required 2 tablespoons to really pop the flavor.

3. Whichever type of curry paste you choose, be conscientious how much you use. The spice level tin can vary widely between brands, and then beginning with a smaller amount if you are non used to very spicy food. I commonly use Mae Ploy back-scratch pastes, which are very spicy. If I employ more than one or ii tablespoons, information technology is too spicy for my family. Thai Kitchen brand is piece of cake to find in supermarkets, and it is much milder. I would use at least 3 tablespoons of it.

Nutrition Information

Yield

Serving Size

1
Amount Per Serving Calories 320 Total Fat 20g Saturated Fat 1g Trans Fat 0g Unsaturated Fat 17g Cholesterol 71mg Sodium 729mg Carbohydrates 16g Fiber 2g Sugar 6g Protein 21g

Nutrient values are estimates only. Variations may occur due to product availability and manner of food grooming. Nutrition may vary based on methods of preparation, origin, freshness of ingredients, and other factors.