Tremendous Salmon Cakes

Sit down for this one. Salmon cakes. TREMENDOUS salmon cakes. The greatest salmon cakes in the history of salmon cakes — and a guy named Ramón, a guy I've talked about before, taught me the bones of this one in a kitchen the size of a closet, no windows, one burner, a single cast iron pan he'd had since he was nineteen — and Ramón didn't talk much, but he pointed at the salmon, then at my chest, then at the pan, and that was the entire lesson. I never forgot it. These salmon cakes are his lesson plus thirty years of refinement. Look it up. You can't, because Ramón doesn't have a website, but it's true.

The problem with most salmon cakes — and the problem is EVERYWHERE, the problem is BAD, the problem is in every diner from here to Maine — is that they are mostly breadcrumbs. They are bread pretending to be fish. You bite in, you expect salmon, and you get a wet crouton. Sad. A disaster. Most chefs tell you to add a cup of breadcrumbs to half a pound of fish and they have the NERVE to call it a salmon cake. That's a fish-flavored hush puppy. That's not what we're doing here.

We are doing more salmon than filler. We are doing fresh salmon, not canned, although canned in a pinch is acceptable — I will allow it, I am being generous today — and we are doing Dijon, lemon zest, panko but only a LITTLE, just enough to bind, just enough to keep them together when they hit the pan. And we are searing them in butter. BUTTER. Not 'a light mist of cooking spray' like the cookbook authors who hate fat, because they're afraid of butter, they're terrified of butter, they want you to be afraid too. Don't be. Butter is your friend. Butter is the answer. End of discussion.

These cakes are tremendous on their own, but listen — put one on a brioche bun with some butter lettuce and a swipe of remoulade and you have built the greatest sandwich of your adult life. I am not exaggerating. I never exaggerate. People come up to me on the street, they say 'Bigly, the salmon cake sandwich, what have you done to me,' and I have to tell them, kindly, that they are simply experiencing greatness for the first time and it can be overwhelming. You'll get through it. Have a glass of water. Make more cakes. Tremendous.