My first shot at oven-baked tuna cakes, based on Michelle Tam’s from Nom Nom Paleo, was good, but not just to Mr. S’s and my taste quite yet. So I took another run at the dish. Here’s what I did:

Tuna Cakes, Take 2 (They’re Small!)

2 tins of great tuna, 1 tin of great tiny shrimp, and 3 fresh, raw eggs, all gently chopped together. I used my blade-style (not wire) pastry blender, a tool whose blades are strong enough to chop through the fish and shrimp and spaced far enough apart not to simply mash them, so they retained texture to my liking. I seasoned the mix with lemon juice, dill, smoked paprika, yellow mustard, and a bit of cayenne—very much like our favorite tuna salad for sandwiches and dip, but without the mayo, since the eggs and shrimp hold things together and the egg-lemon combo gives a vaguely “mayonnaisean” flavor. I divided the tuna ‘salad’ into a greased 24-muffin tin, only loosely poking the seafood into the cups to keep them rather airy.

For the top layer of the cakes, I baked one large russet potato, let it cool enough to handle it without getting myself all starch-sticky, and coarsely grated the insides. The peel, separately, got minced finely and nuked until beginning to crisp in about 2 Tablespoons of melted ghee and a little sprinkle of Maldon sea salt crystals, and then gently blended with the grated potato ‘meat’ before being popped on top of the fish mixture in a similar fashion. For a little decorative gesture and last dose of flavor, I sprinkled the cakes with a light dusting of additional paprika and salt and then a few bits of jarred pimientos.

Baked for about 20-25 minutes at 350°F/177ºC, they’re quite lovely served with some salsa and a further sprinkle of flaked salt. Add few sautéed red capsicum slices, toasted sliced almonds on top, and side dishes of diced fresh peaches and pears and some fresh green vegetables (snap peas and celery, on this day) to dunk into dill dip, and the meal is complete. The dill dip was made, this time, from a base blend of avocado oil mayonnaise and coconut milk seasoned with salt and pepper and, of course, plenty of dill. This post is brought to you on Foodie *Wednesday* courtesy of No-Access Tuesday. I’ll post my regular Wednesday episode today, too, since I’m back in internet-available territory. So I’ll see you later. Barring any further interruptions of our regular programming!