The tales of a fish tail.

A big hello to all out there!!!

I live to eat so I hope that my subsequent blog posts may encourage all of us to be brave and whip out the courage to face the heat in the kitchen and make the best we can with our proud catches ok?

Here's my usual reaction when the fishes are the being reeled up: I will first do species identification, which I mostly rely on witty abel to announce the catches as most fishes may look quite foreign as I have not been fishing long enough. Next, I'll check out the shape of the tail which would almost tell me the texture and possibly the taste of the flesh...

This is not the exhaustive list but something good for us to start with:

From the tail, we can tell that the more active the fish, the firmer the flesh is.(like duh rights.. same concept as beef shank vs tenderloin) So, for example, a fish with a forked tail, like the pomfret, is firmer than that of trout with a truncated tail. Understanding the structure of the tail would also give you insights about the fishes' habitat and it's hunting preferences (then you'll know agar what bait it goes for too)... Therefore, I really find this part of the fish really intriguing and sexy... Did I mention the beautiful spectrum of colours you can find on the tail... like my favourite mandarin dragonet <3 And on a side note, since we are fishing kims, kims tail looks like a broom with silver bristles.. hahaha.

Ok moving on.. so after quickly assessing the texture of the flesh- be it firm or flaky- we can then decide on the best cooking method to obtain the best best best tasting fish dish.




For firmer texture fishes like the toadfish (some says taste like chicken), catfishes, halibut, parrotfish, turbo, grouper and yada yada yada... the best way is actually to pan-sear or deep fry. Take advantage of the good firm texture of the fish and go all crazy with it... for the record, i meant seasoning the fish well. These fishes are usually active so the flesh usually taste rather meh. (coz loads of oxygen pumping through the muscles and such) So unlike some 'sweet' and tenderlovingcare flesh, you kinda get a 'canvas" which you can whack whatever flavours/ spices/ colours/ you want! Do not be shy.. some of my feesh infinities are:

1. Sweet Paprika with catfish
2. Kentucky fried turbo cutlets... with mango mayo yums.
3. Citrus and turbo
4. assam/ chilli/ sambal/ lemongrass stringray- totally a given..

And for our lem-bek frens, these guys are the easiest. Scale, gut and wash them... bring your knife through them and make small slits at both sides and send them to steam IN DA WOK. easy peasy and no fuss. For the flakier and softer texture dudes like our dear kims, we honour them by doing as little as possible. in this case, less is more.

I will be sharing some fishy recipes in the next few posts so rmb to catch that.. however in the meantime, as the saying goes: ''when in doubt, just deep fry"...

cekims pro tip #7: air fryer is a good investment.

Cheers!