How Peter Murphy makes fishcakes: a recipe adapted from track 14 of Mask, by Bauhaus, with commentary. If you would like to hear it during this cooking lesson, click here.
Ingredients:
Directions:
Take a fish
And a potato
The directions at this stage appear at first glance to be unrelentingly ambiguous, but that is part of the beauty of this nifty little Friday-night recipe. You can take any kind of fish and pair it with any kind of potato, as long as the size ratios work (as will be described shortly). A red bliss potato, for example, pairs nicely with mahi mahi. Sweet potato is delicious with monkfish, and the rugged russet pairs up surprisingly well with the lushly sensual salmon.
Hold the fish
And the potato.
In your hand.
In your hand.
The repetition of "In your hand" is not to be ignored. It is crucially important not to hold the fish, nor the potato, much less both, between your toes.
Put the potato
In the fish
Make it digest it
Smash it up.
Smash it up.
Smash it up.
Smash it up.
Murphy's innovative approach to cooking with natural acids may borrow from Asian cuisine. The practice of "cooking" raw fish in acidic juices such as tamarind is well-known, less so the practice of force feeding a fish a raw potato in order to "cook" the potato in the fish in the best alchemical Aristotelian style. The quadrepitition of "smash it up" signifies that the chef should be prepared to smash to a point of exhaustion, pause, and repeat at least four times in order to acheive the creamy consistency that will lead to a fine fish cake.
This is how you make fishcakes.
This is how one makes fishcakes.
Smash it up.
Poke it up.
This passage of the recipe signifies the end of the basic recipe; what we have seen thus far is, most simply, how you make fishcakes, and how one makes fishcakes in general; by smashing and poking. Although, to be fair to the now understandably nonplussed home chef, it is true that the poking precedes the smashing.
Fishcakes.
Fishcakes.
Fishcakes.
Fishcakes.
This insouciant chant of delight is the appropriate pre-victual ritual.
The recipe leaves out the precise time and heat for cooking, which either suggests that the Murphy fishcake is to be enjoyed tartare, or that the standard baking time of 350 degrees for 20 minutes, a time guaranteed to bake anything which has been rendered to a goopy paste into a solid state, is in order.
Put it down the fish
Put it down the fish
Throw it against the wall
Stamp on the fish
The "it" in this case very likely refers to the potato, and constitutes a review of the recipe during the baking wait-time. Continue to chant:
Fishcakes.
Fishcakes.
Fishcakes.
Fishcakes.
Serving Suggestion:
Throw it on the wall.
Smash it on the wall.
Throw it on the wall.
Smash it on the wall.
Fishcakes!
Fishcakes!
For avalyn. And I can't believe legbagede didn't mention Peter Murphy at all in his writeup! gasp!