Smoked mackarel fishcakes

I had some leftover mackarel pate from Boxing Day and some leftover mashed potato from dinner so I decided to make fishcakes.

I would normally just use the fish but in this case I had homemade mackarel pate - which was just smoked mackarel and soft cheese - and decided that would work just as well in a fishcake.

I simply mixed it with the mashed potato and added some herbs and seasoning.

I then shaped the mixture into patties and dipped them in breadcrumbs. Sometimes you might need to coat the fishcakes in flour then beaten egg to get the breadcrumbs to stick, but because I was using pate rather than fish the mixture was already wet enough for the breadcrumbs to stick.

Bake in the oven for about 20 minutes until crisp.

 I took these into work for lunch along with some homemade low fat tartare sauce, which I made by mixing Quark, fat free fromage frais, lemon juice, seasoning and capers.

I am sending this to the No Waste Food challenge, hosted by Elizabeth's Kitchen and Turquoise Lemons, as their challenge this month is finding ways to use up leftover mashed potato.

I am also sending this to Credit Crunch Munch, hosted by Helen at Fuss Free Flavours. She has rebranded the Frugal Food Friday challenge and is running it with Camilla from Fab Food 4 All. The idea remains the same - to share recipes which are thrifty and help you save money, and using up leftovers certainly does that.