Sunday, 22 May 2011

UDANG GALAH SARAWAK, FRESH WATER PRAWN, (Macrobrachium rosenbergii) 大头虾

UDANG GALAH SARAWAK, FRESH WATER PRAWN,
(Macrobrachium rosenbergii) 头虾











A matured male "A" size prawn .























Small prawn



.













This is a berried female prawn. (meanings= with egg)
Berried female prawn wouldn't grow bigger because all the nutrient had been used up to produce eggs. that's why you can hardly or never see big "A" size berried female. 



BAUNGS / CAT FISH IN SARAWAK

BAUNGS SUNGAI / CAT FISH IN SARAWAK
Baung Sungai, "Pak Suk Gong" means
" white moustache uncle" in Cantonese.
This fish had been very common since the farmer  know how to breed it. But the breeded will ALWAYS different quality compared to the wild caught fish. The biggest size we found was around 4kg and it's loko.



Baung Tasik,
Normally the black "baung" fish is not very good in taste. In addition, the skin quite smelly. This fish will be "loko" around 1.5kg and above.


Baung Jerung, 鲨鱼头白须公
The head and the face really look like shark!
Unfortunately, I didn't take his face picture.







Baung Kelulang / Baung Sakam / or been called White tail baung in cantonese. is one of the biggest species "baung" among them. Here, we did found around 8kg size fish without loko. Because the size of the fish, this fish also consider one of the main fish collected fish.

PATIN BUAH SARAWAK, 果子巴丁

PATIN BUAH SARAWAK, 果子巴丁




Some time patin buah also being called as "Shark head" patin because of the shape of the patin's head really looked like "shark" !.




Patin Buah 19 kg. But still not LOKO !! Haha. hard to believed. There are clues to see how can separate the loko patin and the good one. This one really shows all good signs on the fish.



Patin Hulu
"Patin Hulu" is one of the rare species patin. It's only can be found mostly at the upper stream of the river where you can find semah and empurau fish. It's looked similar to the rest of the patin but it is different. It's body is much wider compared to the most of the patin species. Their head, face and tail also different. A very obvious different with other species of patin is their "white end tips tail". This is one of the best fish in sarawak.







SEBARAU, ADONG SARAWAK, Hampala Macrilepidota,水马骝

SEBARAU, ADONG SARAWAK, (Hampala Macrilepidota),
  Sebarau is one of the game fish for fresh water fishing. It can be very easily hooked up with bait lure of artificial fish lure. But for the dinning at the table, very few people like this fish very well. Mainly because of the fish is "tasteless" as many people commended. That complain mostly from among the fresh water fish lovers. Some said the fish only can be eaten freshly, else the fish's stomach discoloured too quickly and become not fresh.
      Yes, their comments are true. But that is true when you hook the fish in the river and put into the ice box, take it home, then only cook it. If you had caught one of this fish and straight away cook it then, the flesh of this fish is very very good and sweet. I myself still not fully understand why as many people do. But one of my friend of fishing mania said one secret to me regarding this fish. How can you preserve the fish without losing it's freshness and taste even if you had put inside the freezer. Haha. I think, i wouldn't tell you all how...
                     

to be continue...........

水马骝

GAHAK SARAWAK, 正白鲶

GAHAK SARAWAK, 正白



Gahak, 正白













"Bilut"鸭嘴鲶







Lais Bongkok

RINGAU SARAWAK, TIGER FISH, RIVER TIGER, (Datnioides Microlepis), 河老虎

RINGAU SARAWAK, TIGER FISH, RIVER TIGER,
(Datnioides Microlepis), 河老虎

              This is one of the rare fish could be found here. This fish being called as Ringau in Sarawak. This fish is not the same with the other tiger fish around the world, esp the "Siamese Tiger" fish. , which has been now facing extinction.  So, consuming this fish is still consider legal for this species.







MATA MERAH SARAWAK, KELABAU, (Osteochilus Melanopleur), 红眼

MATA MERAH SARAWAK, KELABAU, (Osteochilus Melanopleur),红眼
"Mata Merah", the name obtained by the fish's red eyes in nature. This fish however not being considered as good fish in river fish species because of their original fishy smell. Because of their prefered natural food, some of the fresh water "aquatic weed", make them smell a little bit "green algae" smell. Some of the skillful chef in Sarawak know exactly what to do to eliminate the green algae smell and thus, that's why this fish become one of a good delicacy here.


This Mata Merah with bigger scale is a smaller species fish and rarely found above 1.5kg size perfish 

Wednesday, 18 May 2011

KETUTU (LIFE) SARAWAK, betutu, Marble Goby, Marbled Sleepy Goby, (Oxyleatris Marmoretus) or "Soon Hock" 顺克

Ketutu, betutu,  Marble Goby, Marbled Sleepy Goby, (Oxyleatris Marmoretus) or "Soon Hock" 顺克 by cantonese is one of the popular river fish that to be trade alive only....


All this soon hock is from the wild. You can see the colour of the fish itself.
             The smallest size of the fish that can be served on the plate in Malaysia is 500g. And the biggest size I had ever seen and purchased before was 9.9 kg. The biggest fish caught I heard around the fishermen was 16kg perfish !! Hard to believe ha....





That's my pet at home......



              The Soon Hock are ready for packing and send out. Before doing the packing, the fish had to be anaesthetic first or else many plastic bags will leaked due to the large opening of the mouth when disturbed and high metalbolism cause high oxygen usage and finally lack of oxygen ... I had bad experience in the pass when handling this life fish without anaesthetic the fish. Every time at least 10-20% die when reaching destination. But for the Drugs we use is strictly derived from plants and not man's made synthetic chemicals.

                For quality assurance, we just can't do this fish in large quantity. We collect only from the trainned, experinced and "willing to hear" person. Why? because many bad experience before... haha. The irresponsible collector didn't care whether the fish will alive here long enough, if the fish is still alive, then you have to buy it. Then the fish will die in 1 or 2 days.










8 kg and 6 kg soon hock.


The different of wild and breed ketutu fish is quit easy to differentiate. See the left betutu is breeded and the right is from the wild. Notice that the wild (right) got neck injury one whole round caused by net.

All my soon hock fish had been reserved for some one already.
So, at this moment, this is not the items for sales. Just for display only......


Monday, 16 May 2011

TAPAH FISH SARAWAK, Giant Cat Fish, (Wallago Attu), 鲶鱼

TAPAH  FISH, Giant Cat Fish, (Wallago Attu) or in Cantonese "Lim Yee"                                  is one of the most abundant fresh water fish for consumption. 
            This one is the "Wong Lim", means "Yellow Tapah". Very distinguished pattern of 3 rigid white lines from body to tail. Before it had been cleaned, the skin of the fish was covered with yellowish mud. That's why it is called "Yellow Tapah". Most experience old folks and cheft said yellow tapah is better. But in my opinion and experience, yes it is true. But not 100% true.


One of the reason, the fish always blends with their sorrounding to gain protections. When the stream water is very clear, then the tapah fish caught surely very dark in colour. The "Yellow Tapah" as they claimed better quality fish is actually caught from a more yellowish muddy river. Which means, the river is more poluted by mud mostly because of timber activity. Why then better taste? Just because the highly poluted river always have less fish to compete with food, then the fish in that area surely contain more fat than the virgin river. Because of these fat, the flesh of fish are smooth and not rough in your mouth.
                   For me, to sellect a good tapah fish, I would rather see whether the fish have enough fat or not. Then, smell and check whether the fish has good aroma or not (before cooked). For darker tapah, there is always one disadvantages for darker fish, darker fish seem to be "loko" or hard skin faster compared the lighter coloured fish. So, for eg : yellow tapah may reach 20kg then only loko, but the dark tapah will loko at 12kg.


        Some time, 70-80% of the fish collected was solely tapah. The biggest I had seen was about 50 kg. This picture tapah size is almost there. Many of my friends did mention about 100 kg perfish. But 1 of my "Kaki" did call me about a 300kg perfish!!













 After did the QC test, this one is confirmed to be a loko tapah, weighted at 15 kg. Not very hard yet, just a bit. Recognition of the loko tapah is actually very easy. Just that not much people concern about it.













Size                 Price
A > 1.8 kg => MG
B > 1.0 kg => AG

To be continue.......