Weaning update #3 - fishcakes

We've been weaning Harry for a few weeks now, and I've started to think more widely than fruit and veggies. That said we did try baby rice and porridge but Harry turned his nose up at the former, and the latter ended up having milk on the ingredient list - a downfall of online shopping I'm finding.

Fruit and veggies have been a hit so far - everything has been sucked, chomped and liberally distributed around the dining room table (thank heavens for wipeable tablecloths) It's as though the control baby led weaning offers him is something he's embraced quite literally with both hands.

We've had a couple of gagging/ choking incidents which did for my nerves fairly swiftly, but I've pressed on as I don't want Harry to be the child in reception still eating purees because his mother's a nervous wreck. If you're weaning, or coming up to weaning there is a lot out there to read on the difference between the two and I would recommend it, as at first I panicked at gagging which I now know is unecessary.

Talking to my mum, she mentioned weaning me and said that my Grandad - he of this post  - gave her plaice to try me on as a first weaning food. Apparently I wasn't keen initially, but loved it the second time. I duly added some plaice to my online shop and last week cooked it up for Harry.

Baby fishcakes - dairy free

100g plaice fillet
2 baking potatoes, peeled
Olive oil

Boil the potatoes in water with no salt. When soft, rice them. Don't add any butter, milk etc - this is a recipe for a baby with a cows milk protein allergy.
Put the plaice fillet in a saucepan skin side down and cover with water. Bring to the boil and simmer until the fish is opaque - about 10 minutes.
Let the fish sit in the water until it's cool enough to handle - I gave it another 15 minutes, before removing it from the water and flaking the fish away from the skin. (I took this opportunity to do another check for bones)
Mix the flaked fish in with the riced potato and use a little of the fish cooking water to bring the two ingredients together. You could also use a little rice/ almond/ breast milk
Split the fish and potato mix up into little patties - about a heaped dessert spoon of mix in each one. If they're not already cold, put them into the fridge to firm up.
Heat up the olive oil in a frying pan and fry the fishcakes until browned on both sides. Remove from the heat and let them cool before freezing.

I froze mine on a tray so that when they were solid I could tip them into a freezer bag and just take them out to reheat when we wanted one. When Harry's further on in his weaning I'd add something like parsley - but for now what was important was the 2 ingredients, that it was holdable (it's a word) by Harry and that it wasn't complete mush - hence the fish was just flaked.