Ac­cra or cod fish cakes are served as an ap­pe­tiz­er or snack. When made in­to cakes it’s a fill­ing and de­li­cious break­fast. When made in­to round ball, it can be en­joyed as an ap­pe­tiz­er and a great dish to bring to a par­ty or bar­be­cue. Full of flavour in each bite, every­one will be go­ing back for more, so feel free to dou­ble, triple or quadru­ple the recipe.

IN­GRE­DI­ENTS

Makes 9 cakes or many frit­ters.

6 oz salt­fish, skin­less, bone­less

1 cup all-pur­pose flour

1 tea­spoon bak­ing pow­der

1/2 tea­spoon ac­tive dry yeast

2 ta­ble­spoons fine­ly diced green sweet pep­per

2 ta­ble­spoons fine­ly diced red bell pep­per (about 1/4 medi­um)

1 ta­ble­spoon fine­ly diced pi­men­to pep­per (1 large)

1 scal­lion, fine­ly chopped (about 2 ta­ble­spoons)

2 ta­ble­spoons green sea­son­ing

1 tea­spoon minced gar­lic

1/4 cup fine­ly diced onion

1 tea­spoon thyme leaves

1 tea­spoon brown sug­ar

Salt, to taste

1 tea­spoon fresh­ly ground black pep­per

About 1/2 cup wa­ter

Oil, for fry­ing

DI­REC­TIONS

Pre­pare Salt­fish:

1 Us­ing a knife, cut salt fish in­to small pieces. Soak for sev­er­al hours. Rinse with sev­er­al changes of wa­ter un­til on­ly a hint of salt re­mains. Squeeze out all liq­uid from the salt­fish. (Al­ter­na­tive­ly, you may rinse salt fish, then boil, chang­ing wa­ter sev­er­al times, drain, trans­fer to a bowl and flake with a fork) .

2 Dice pep­pers, onion, scal­lion, mince gar­lic.

3 In the bowl with the salt fish, add the re­main­ing in­gre­di­ents (flour, bak­ing pow­der, yeast, pep­pers, scal­lion, green sea­son­ing, gar­lic, onion, thyme leaves, brown sug­ar and black pep­per).

4 Us­ing your hands(or spoon), mix to­geth­er while grad­u­al­ly adding wa­ter, un­til you have a thick bat­ter. Add more salt if the cod fish has no trace of salt af­ter wash­ing or boil­ing. Al­low the bat­ter to rest for 15-30 min­utes.

4 Deep fried Frit­ters(balls): Heat 1 inch of oil in a fry­ing pan over medi­um heat. Start by do­ing a taste test for salt. Us­ing a one ta­ble­spoon mea­sure, scoop and drop bat­ter in­to the hot oil. Flip and cook the oth­er side. Trans­fer to a pa­per tow­el lined plat­ter. When cool, taste the frit­ter, adding more salt to the bat­ter, if nec­es­sary.

5 Shal­low fry­ing - Round cakes: Heat 1 inch oil in a fry­ing pan or skil­let. Work­ing in batch­es (now us­ing a 1/4 cup mea­sur­ing cup), scoop bat­ter, drop in­to oil, flat­ten with a spat­u­la and fry, flip­ping once, un­til both sides are gold­en brown. Do not over­crowd pan. Trans­fer to pa­per tow­els to drain. In­stead of us­ing a 1/4 cup mea­sur­ing cup, you may al­so scoop and shape bat­ter with your fin­gers, then drop gen­tly in­to oil.

Cook­ing Notes:

• Add more oil as nec­es­sary in be­tween batch­es and al­ways make sure that the oil comes back to tem­per­a­ture.

• Re­duce the heat at any point the oil be­gins to smoke. I low­er the heat while I am shap­ing the frit­ters and raise it to medi­um im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter shap­ing.

Serv­ing In­struc­tions:

• Serve plain or with man­go chut­ney, kuchela or hot sauce.

• Serve warm or room tem­per­a­ture

Recipes and words by Cook­ing with Ria

I love mak­ing peo­ple hap­py and the best way I know how is with food. I be­lieve a plate of food is a cat­a­lyst for change and the ul­ti­mate ex­pres­sion of love and kind­ness. I am a Trinida­di­an (Tri­ni), orig­i­nal­ly from a small vil­lage in Cen­tral Trinidad. I moved to NYC more than 25 years ago in search of the Amer­i­can dream. I’ve al­ways made the ex­tra ef­fort to pre­serve my cul­ture and cui­sine and my blog and chan­nel is a re­sult of that pas­sion. I tru­ly hope you en­joy this recipe I’ve spent years per­fect­ing. If you wish to see more of my recipes, join me here the last Wednes­day of every month and con­nect with me on So­cial Me­dia.

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