BEST! Fish Cutlets (Sri Lankan Fish Croquettes)

Discover How to Make Fish Cutlets (Sri Lankan Fish Croquettes)! Fish Cutlets or Cutlets are one of the most popular Sri Lankan savory snacks (or ‘short eats’) made of spiced canned fish and potatoes. They are so delicious- one is not enough for anyone. You need to try it to believe how good they are!

Fish Cutlets
(Sri Lankan Fish Croquettes)

Bring a touch of ‘Sri Lanka’ to your kitchen! In this post, I’ll show you how to make ‘Fish Cutlets’ or ‘Cutlets’ the easy way at home from scratch.

Here you’ll find an easy-to-follow recipe with step-by-step pictures, helpful info plus top tips. I hope you will try the recipe and enjoy ‘Cutlets’ as much as I do!!

Perfect as a yummy teatime snack, party food, appetizer, finger food, or picnic snack, and goes well with sweet chili sauce or ketchup. You can prepare them ahead and deep-fry them as required.

What are Fish Cutlets?

You’ll find ‘Croquettes’ in various cuisines across the world. As with every other culture, Sri Lankans have adapted it to their taste with the ingredients available.

Sri Lankan-style ‘Croquettes’, locally known as ‘Cutlets’ or ‘Fish Cutlets’, are deep-fried ball-shaped bite-size snacks made with spiced canned fish and potatoes. They have a crunchy exterior and a soft, flavorful inside.

Fish Cutlets are not only a great teatime snack, but they are also a must-have item in Sri Lankan-style celebration menus such as weddings, dinner parties, tea parties, and gatherings.

What is a Croquette? 

The word croquette derives from the French word croquer, meaning ‘to crunch’. In general, a croquette is a deep-fried ball or roll (though they can also be flat) made with meat and vegetables. Ingredients like bechamel or mashed potatoes act as binders, and the crisp coating is often made with breadcrumbs.

How Do You Make Fish Cutlets?

In Sri Lankan cuisine, cutlets refer to fish (usually canned tuna or mackerel) and potato croquettes.

The fish and potatoes are stir-fried with ginger, garlic, green chilies, and onions. Adding spices like chili, turmeric, and black pepper and herbs like curry leaves is very common.

The mixture is shaped into balls, dipped in egg mixture, (or a batter made of flour and eggs), and covered in breadcrumbs before frying.

A cutlet is traditionally deep-fried. So, they come with a crispy-crunchy crust on the outside with a soft fishy inside.

You can make a vegetarian version without using fish and adding more vegetables like carrots, and peas.

Make Ahead Options

Fried fish cutlets as well as shaped fish cutlets freeze well. I highly recommend you make them ahead of time when you are planning a party.

Fried Fish Cutlets- You can make a big batch ahead of time and freeze them after frying for about one month or so. Briefly re-fry them after bringing them to room temperature or bake them in an oven for a short period until warm.

Shaped Fish Cutlets- You can shape, crumb coat, and then freeze them to fry at a later time for about 3 months. Bring to room temperature and fry the cutlets just before you want to serve them.

Ingredients

Here are the ingredients you’ll need to make this recipe. For the quantities of each ingredient, check out the printable recipe card at the bottom of the post.

For the Mixture

• Fish – Fish cutlets are commonly made with canned mackerels or canned tuna. You can also use fresh fish or frozen fish fillets such as tuna or bonito. If you use fresh fish, make sure to boil and remove the bones first and then mash.
• Potato – Boiled potatoes not only act as the binding agent but also give a body to the fish cutlets.
• Fresh Ingredients – Adding finely chopped onions, green chilies, ginger, and garlic is essential. In Sri Lanka, curry leaves and pandan leaves are commonly used for fragrance and flavor which makes a big difference to the taste too. If you cannot find them, just skip them.
• Seasoning – Chili powder, turmeric powder, ground black pepper, and salt are widely used.
• Other Ingredients – Lime is commonly used, you can use lemon juice instead.

For Coating

Slightly beaten eggs and fine breadcrumbs are commonly used. The crumb coating not only gives them the perfect crust but also helps in keeping the shapes of these cutlets intact. Otherwise, cutlets could break apart when deep frying.

For Frying

In Sri Lanka, it is common to use coconut oil for both cooking and frying. In Japan, I use coconut oil or olive oil for cooking and rice oil for frying.

Serving Suggestions

You can serve them just plain without a dipping sauce, however, in Sri Lanka, it is common to eat them with chili sauce. Sweet chili sauce is always my go-to sauce but ketchup and mayonnaise are also brilliant. I also love putting them in sandwiches slathered with chili sauce on the bread slices.

Top Tips For Making
The Best cutlets

Making the Mixture

• Drain the fish completely if you use canned fish and then mash (I don’t remove the bones when I use canned fish). if you use fresh fish, make sure it doesn’t have any bones.
• Do not boil potatoes until mushy. After draining the water, let the potatoes in the colander to get dry evaporating the extra moisture.
• When massing the potatoes, it is okay to have small unmashed potatoes, but make sure not to leave too many.
• Make sure to finely chop the ingredients you use.
• The final mixture should be on the dry side without being too moist, so make sure to stir-fry the mixture to get dry evaporating the extra moisture, but be careful not to get too dry mixture.

Shaping and Coating

• For uniform cooking times, make the balls more or less the same size.
• Make sure that the cutlets are properly coated.
• Dip the cutlet in egg mixture and then coat it with fine breadcrumbs twice or more until well coated with the crumbs.
• Make sure to rest the cutlets in the fridge before frying at least for 1 hour, this also prevents splitting.

Frying

• Use enough oil to cover the cutlets and fry them in a short period in batches.
• The oil must be sufficiently hot. Check the oil temperature by dropping some breadcrumbs into it. If that floats to the top and turns golden almost immediately then it’s ready.
• If the oil is not sufficiently heated, cutlets take a long time to fry, and they will absorb too much oil and will end up being soggy and causing splitting.
• Don’t overcrowd the pan with cutlets and fry them in batches.
• Control the heat and oil temperature throughout the deep frying process.

Also check out other similar recipes

Fish Cutlet (Sri Lankan Fish Croquettes) Step-by-Step Recipe

(Check out the printable recipe card at the end of the post)

Prep Time: 30 mins
Cook Time: 30 mins
Serving: 15 to 20

Ingredients

For the Mixture
2 tbsp cooking oil
1/2 tbsp ginger, finely chopped
1 tbsp garlic, finely chopped
1 medium onion, finely chopped
2 green chili, finely chopped, optional
1 tbsp curry leaves, finely chopped, optional
2-inch pandan leave, optional
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
400g canned mackerel or tuna, mashed
400g potatoes, boiled and mashed
1 tbsp lemon juice

For the coating and deep-frying
2 eggs, lightly whisked
Bread crumbs, as needed
Oil for deep-frying, as needed

Instructions

1. Making the Mixture

Boil the potatoes until fork-tender. Drain and allow to slightly cool and dry out. Do not boil potatoes until they become mushy.

Mash roughly with a fork leaving some small chunks of potato for overall texture). Keep it aside.

Discard the brine from the can, and transfer the mackerel to a bowl. When using fresh fish, boil and remove the bones before mashing them.

Mash the fish and keep it ready.

Heat the oil in a frying pan over medium heat. Add the onion, garlic, ginger, fresh chili, curry leaves, and pandan leaves, and saute till the raw smell goes and becomes fragrant. Make sure everything is finely chopped except the pandan, remove the pandan leaves after making the mixture.

Then add salt, turmeric powder, red chili powder, and black pepper and saute for a few seconds. Add the fish and stir-fry until the excess moisture in the frypan has evaporated.

Add potatoes. Mix and continue frying for another minute. Taste, and adjust salt and cracked pepper as needed. Stir in the lemon juice, then remove the pan from the heat and allow to cool.

The cutlet mixture is ready.

2. Shaping and Coating

Once the mixture has cooled, take about 2 tbsp of the mixture (it depends on how big or small you want) and shape it into a ball with a smooth surface using your palms.

• Repeat the same for the rest of the mixture. Arrange them on a plate.
• Cool the shaped balls for about 30 minutes in the fridge before frying as it helps to keep their shape better. 
• At this stage, don’t worry too much about making perfectly round balls. You can do it later when coating with the egg mixture and breadcrumbs.

When you are ready to fry them, beat the eggs in a bowl. Place the breadcrumbs on a flat plate.

Dip each ball into the egg mixture and then roll in the breadcrumbs till well coated.

Repeat the same for all cutlets. Make sure to shape the balls. Roll them 2 to 3 times until they are well coated with the bread crumbs. (At this stage, you can refrigerate them for about 2 days before frying. They are also freezable.)

3. Frying

Heat oil on medium heat in a skillet. Deep-fry the cutlets (in batches, as needed), until golden brown and crisp, turning sides as required.

Fry till golden brown.

Remove and drain on kitchen paper on a wire rack until cool.

The fish cutlet is ready. Serve them just plain or with sweet and spicy chili sauce or tomato ketchup for dipping.

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