Fishballs with cilantro

These fishballs with cilantro can be served as either an appetizer or a side dish. Here, they are intended as an appetizer with sweet chili sauce. Another idea is to prepare them as burgers. Maybe I'll do that sometime as well.

How to make fishballs with cilantro?

Fishballs with cilantro are not difficult to make at all. Since the fish itself has little flavor, you should definitely season it well. Do you have to use the same spices as in this recipe? No. Definitely use what you like and what you feel comfortable with. Later on, we will discuss alternatives and variations.

The preparations

We start with the fish. We wrap it in kitchen paper to remove the moisture. This is important because otherwise, the dough might become too watery and the balls will fall apart during frying.

In this version, we used white toast bread as a binding agent. For this, we cut the crusts off the two slices of bread. Then we mix them in the food processor and set them aside for later.

I always include a shallot. We remove the skin and then cut it into coarse pieces. Later, this will go into the food processor anyway. The same goes for the garlic: remove the skin and cut it into coarse pieces.

We peel the ginger. Otherwise, it would taste bitter. Then we chop it into a few coarse pieces as well.

We also chop the cilantro coarsely. And finally, we crush the coriander seeds in a mortar.

Making the dough for fishballs with cilantro

In the first step, we process the cilantro, shallot, ginger root, and garlic in the food processor.

Once finely ground, we add three-quarters of the breadcrumbs and the fish, as well as the egg white. Process everything again in the food processor. Then check the taste and consistency of the dough. If necessary, you can season it further with pepper and salt. If the dough is too moist, you can add extra breadcrumbs. Otherwise, the balls will fall apart during frying.

Now take the dough out of the food processor and roll it into about twenty balls. Then put them in the refrigerator for an hour to firm up.

Frying the fishballs with cilantro

Heat two tablespoons of oil in a pan and then carefully place the fish balls with cilantro in it. Let them fry for a few minutes and then carefully turn them over. Let them fry for a few more minutes on the other side. Finally, put the lid on the pan for a while to make sure they are well cooked.

Let them cool down and then serve them with some sweet chili sauce.

Variations on fishballs with cilantro

As mentioned earlier, you can vary this recipe in many ways. This applies to the fish, the cilantro, the toast bread, and the spices.

For the fish, we use a firm white fish. Here, I have prepared the recipe with cod. In the past, I have also made it with pangasius, for example. Ultimately, any firm white fish will do.

Cilantro is not up everyone's taste. Some people love it, while for others it tastes like soap. If cilantro is not your cup of tea, you can best replace it with flat-leaf parsley. It is just as green and healthy, but the taste is different.

Here, we used white toast bread as a binder for the balls. But you don't need to buy special toast bread for it. Any other white bread will do, of course. Another alternative is to use panko or breadcrumbs. The purpose of this is to hold the fish balls together.
You can also vary with the spices. Don't have coriander seeds at home? Leave them out. Or replace them with fennel seeds, for example. Nutmeg also goes very well with white fish.

More surprising.balls

Everyone loves meatballs. Don't your children like fish? Then you can make these meatballs, and they will eat fish without noticing. But there are many other ways to prepare meatballs. Here you will find some surprising ideas:

• Chicken spinach balls with feta.
• Chickpea balls in bell pepper sauce.
• Breaded meatballs in yellow-green.
• Braised eggplant with meatballs.

If you speak Dutch, you can find the Dutch version of this recipe on gerechtenweb.blog.