Every Thursday on Moncrieff, stomachs begin to rumble as we turn our attention towards filling our dinner plates, before stuffing ourselves on something delicious and moreish.

Joining guest host Jonathan McCrea today was Domini Kemp, the food writer for the Irish Times Saturday Magazine. In addition to her work as a chef, Domini has added her magical culinary touch to three cookery books of original recipes. She is also a epicurean entrepreneur, having co-founded the Itsa... food chain, which includes a number of bagel restaurants and cafés located around the country. 

On today's food slot, which you can listen back to in full at the bottom of this post, Domini cooked up a storm with seafood, bringing us three different recipes for you to try at home. Zingy crab cakes, Thai fish cakes, and a delicious cocktail sauce worthy of them both. Bon appétit!

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Zingy crab cakes

Makes eight decent crab cakes for eight guests (although if it was all you were eating, as a main course, you might easily scoff two!).

Ingredients: 

1. 500g cooked crab, drained
2. One green chilli, deseeded and very finely sliced
3. Four spring onions, very finely sliced
4. Zest and juice of two limes
5. Big bunch (approx 20g) of flat leaf parsley, chopped
6. Big bunch (approx 20g) coriander, chopped
7. Salt and pepper
8. Handful or two of cream flour
9. One or two eggs, beaten
10. Approx 150g Panko or breadcrumbs
11. Sunflower oil

Method

Really drain the crabmeat to get as much liquid out of it. Mix with the chilies, spring onions, lime zest and juice, the parsley and coriander and season with a little salt but plenty of black pepper. 

Roughly divide into 8 and then shape into patties. They will feel very wet, so I do apologise, but just give then a little dusting in the flour, which you should have spread out on a plate. Then a light dunk in the beaten egg and then a last coating into the Panko or breadcrumbs.

Lay them out on a tray or large plate and refrigerate for an hour or so if you can. Cover them loosely with foil. The fridge will cool them down and also dry them out a bit making them easier to fry.

When you are ready to cook, heat up some sunflower oil in a large non-stick frying pan and fry them carefully on each side for a few minutes until golden brown. Make sure the oil is hot enough and also that a nice golden brown coating forms before you try to turn them over. You may need to do this in two or three batches. You can always keep them warm in an oven while you finish off the second batch.

Drain on kitchen paper and serve with the cocktail sauce.

Thai fish cakes

Serves four to six. Ask your fishmonger to skin and roughly chop about 700 g of salmon for you, so you end up with about 600g of skinned salmon chunks.  You can also use trout or other fish in this. Also, the green beans came in a pack of about 165 g, so don’t get too hung up on the quantity.  Use whatever handy.

Ingredients: 

1. One onion, peeled and roughly chopped
2. One knob ginger, peeled and roughly chopped
3. One stalk lemon grass, roughly chopped
4. Zest of a lime
5. Good pinch sugar
6. Few splashes fish sauce
7. Salt & pepper
8. A bunch spring onions, very finely sliced
9. Olive oil
10. Approx 600 g skinned salmon, cut into chunks
11. Approx 200 g green beans

Method: 

Put the onion, ginger, lemon grass, lime zest, sugar and fish sauce in a food processor and whizz until it makes a finely chopped paste. 

Add the spring onions and salmon and pulse until mixed enough that you can form them into fish cakes. You don’t want it total mush, but slightly chunkier than minced beef, if possible. 

Slice the green beans very finely – about as finely as the spring onions – and then throw them in and season the whole mixture lightly. 

Mix with a spoon and then shape into 8 decent sized fish cakes and place them onto parchment paper and onto a baking tray.  Drizzle each one with a little olive oil and brush or rub with your fingers and bake for about 12-15 minutes at 180°C. 

They may brown ever so slightly on top, but they do cook quite quickly.

Cocktail Sauce

A tangy dipping sauce that pairs extremely well with fish or crab cakes, this sauce is incredibly easy to prepare, tastes wonderful, and packs a punch.

Ingredients:

1. 150g mayonnaise
2. Two tbsp. ketchup
3. One tbsp. horseradish sauce
4. One tbsp. tomato purée
5. Two limes
6. Good pinch cayenne pepper
7. Salt & pepper
8. Few shakes Tabasco sauce

Method:

To make the cocktail sauce, simply mix all the ingredients together, season well and chill until ready to serve.