Using Panko to prepare walleye fishcakes

Walleye is of course best eaten as a fillet, but if you are preparing it as fishcakes, the following tip might be useful (recipe at the link):

In order to have the subtle, delicious flavors of walleye shine through in these cakes, I chose to use panko bread crumbs instead of regular or “Italian-style” bread crumbs, which potentially can alter the innate taste of some dishes.

Additionally, while panko bread crumbs don’t absorb liquids as readily as regular bread crumbs — which means more panko is required to bind mixtures — they also don’t absorb grease as easily and remain crispier longer.

Some background:

Panko is a variety of flaky bread crumb used in Japanese cuisine as a crunchy coating for fried foods, such as tonkatsu. Panko is made from bread baked by electrical current, which yields a bread without a crust, and then grinding the bread to create fine slivers of crumb. It has a crisper, airier texture than most types of breading found in Western cuisine and resists absorbing oil or grease when fried, resulting in a lighter coating. Outside Japan, its use is becoming more popular in both Asian and non-Asian dishes: It is often used on fish and seafood.