Recipe: Gluten free sweet potato and butter bean fish cakes

Butter beans…  where do I start?

Mum and I were having a discussion about these the other day and, having openly told me of her violent disgust of them, she then decided to buy me a can.

I’ve been on a bit of a mission to make sure I eat enough protein at the moment, and adding beans to my meals seemed to be a cheaper way to do this than doubling my meat intake.

So, first on the list, butter beans, and I’ll be honest, my first impression was….yuk.

Still, determined not to waste the tin of them I had just opened, I decided to get inventive.

I put out an appeal for suggestions on Twitter, and loads of you replied with ideas of stews, curries and even biscuits (totally trying this next) but I decided to go totally different!

I thought if I mashed them with sweet potato I could mask the taste(!) and I threw in plenty of garlic and spring onions for good measure.

To make sure it was super healthy, I added both smoked mackeral and salmon – though I reckon you could add tuna as well.

And then I thought, hang on a minute – I could make these into fish cakes! And lo and behold, my sweet potato and butter bean fish cakes were born!

These were really delicious, I even had some for breakfast the next day!

Butter bean and sweet potato fish cakes

1 tin butter beans (drained)

1 sweet potato

1 fillet of salmon, cooked

1 smoked mackeral fillet

1 clove garlic

knob of butter

3 spring onions

1 tsp coconut oil

1. Peel and chop the sweet potato, and boil in salt water for approx 20 minutes
2. Add the butter beans to the sweet potato, boil for 5 mins more and then drain
3. Add the butter, garlic (crushed) and chopped spring onions to a pan and fry for a minute
4. Add the potatoes and beans to the pan and mash thoroughly with a potato masher
5. When mashed, stir in the flaked fish so it is mixed thoroughly
6. I then waited for these to cool slightly (ironically I had mine for breakfast the next day!) and moulded them into ‘burger’ shapes
7. Fry in a little coconut oil until golden on each side – note they are quite soft so be careful when flipping them.

I enjoyed mine for breakfast (odd, I know, but part of my get ripped or die trying mission!) with poached eggs!

What’s your favourite butter bean recipe? Share them below or send them to me using the contact page!