I'm trying to encourage my wife to venture into the world of preparing and eating fish. She grew up with no exposure. My father in law loved fishing and would cook and eat all kinds of freshwater fish but my wife's take on it is that all it does is makes the house stink and tastes 'fishy'.

At the cafeteria at work once in a while they have tilapia and although it isn't much for taste, it isn't fishy. I was hoping that when my pond starts growing harvestable panfish that I can experiment with recipes (deep fry, grill, bake) with the help of members of PB.

But i was at the grocery store this week and saw bags of tilapia on sale individually packed, ready to thaw and prepare. I was tempted...

Then I saw next to it a bag that said 'swai' The bag was more oblong and there were larger filets or less of them per bag. I couldn't get a good look at them and had not heard of swai before.

I don't remember seeing much about it on PB.

I found this youtube. You can see the fish go nuts at around the 1 min mark and I thought it was fascinating that you had to load up a dugout canoe to get enough food to feed all the fish!

What family is this fish from? What does it taste like? Is it grown in the south like catfish? Some posters online indicated it was a mild fish like tilapia but tasted better than catfish?

I'm eager to learn!

Swai feeding time!

Found this on wikipedia

Wikipedia swai

I found it interesting that part of the fish's scientific name is the word 'hypothalmus' (the part in the human brain that is the master controller of the gland system, it talks to the pituitary which then gives signals to many other glands) Not sure why they would choose that word to describe this fish.

I have never eaten one but I have fed them. If you take a boat tour of the water market in Bangkok, there are people everywhere selling small bags of food for you to throw. It is just like the video!

Stay away from imported tilapia. No restrictions on chemical and drug use in many of the third world countries it's raised in. One of my board members took a trip to one of those countries said he would never eat tilapia again from overseas. The workers that lived on the premises of the ponds had their raw sewage go into the ponds. And they were constantly throwing drugs and chemicals into the ponds to combat sick fish.

Here in the U.S. fish farms are strictly regulated and tested.

I ate some store bought imported tilapia once before I knew better. Didn't like it as it had some kind of off flavor to it. The ones I've raised myself were some of the best fish I have ever eaten.

We see a lot of swai down here in in the grocery stores. After researching it on the interweb, my wife won't buy it anymore.

I had swai once, It is the only fish i have tried and do not like. It does not have a fishy taste though. More like scrambled eggs.

The tilapia and swai bags were sold by a local supermarket chain that is present in the great lakes states and no where else called Meijer. They 'rebrand' their packaging but often get it from local sources. The bag only mentioned that they were 'farm raised'. I'm not sure I would be able to tell any more than that. It looks like swai need moving water, hence living in large river backwater areas. Not sure how they raise them in farms, and I wonder if they do raise them in the southern US? they need 70 degree water.

I once got reamed REAL bad for starting a thread about wild caught vs raised fish because a few members decided to turn it into a political debate about DDT and dying Africans. I just wanted any reliable info on which was healthier. I later researched the issue and Cecil is right on. I haven't bought ANY Asian imported fish since. Sure the frozen imports are cheaper but pay a bit more and buy fresh wild fish. The best scenario if possible is to get a good spot to catch some fish and take the wife out. Yes, bait her hook and take em off the hook. Good luck and good health.

And then there is the question as to whether pellet trained fish taste different than fish raised on natural forage?

It would be interesting to know if any of these fish are being grown in the US. From what I read, they spawn by going up river. It doesn't say that is mandatory tho, like salmon. Is it even legal to release them in a pond? It mentions them as aquarium fish, so the "potential" is there.

Feed on other fish and plant matter. Wonder what plant matter?

After a few years of King salmon in the freezer from lake michigan my wife ordered salmon at a resturant, she has since commited to never eating farmed atlantic salmon again becuase it tast terrible in comparison.

Fishnchips, I agree, It seems that the large backwater of a muddy river in vietnam or cambodia is not much different than a large clay lined warm water farm pond in Georgia or Florida. If the water had to move a bit at times I'm sure with pumps that requirement could be handled (pumping from one pond to the next in a circle for example to circulate the water from time to time)

Anyone have swai on their list of legal or illegal fish in their state (assuming southern states only would bother to mention it)?

I'm not sure if the aquarium version is the same as what is in the videos online. The filets in the store had to come from a pretty big fish...

They seem to grow bigger than tilapia, equals bigger filets, This could be a prime example of the 'rebranding' of fish to make them more appealing like the patagonian toothfish becoming the chilean sea bass, the slimehead becoming orange roughy, and other foods..(prunes are no longer prunes but 'dried plums', Rapeseed oil is now called canola oil, and this quote from a webpage:

-------------
#1. Sea Urchin Used to Be Whore's Eggs

The Japanese, eaters of all sorts of disgusting things, had been eating whore's eggs for a really long time. As if you needed further proof that the USA leads the way in being a bunch of prudes, allow us to be the first to tell you that folks here in the States have been eating "whore's eggs" for a long time also. The only difference is, because we have some kind of irrational fear of whores, we call them uni here, and that's a stupid name, because what they really are is sea urchins.


Uni is a delicacy here now. In fact, it's so popular that you should get off your computer right now and take up diving. Urchin divers make $2,500 a week. That's almost as much as a good whore makes. "

------------

(..edit...not the way I would have ended the article...)


Folks down south could call it cultured catfish or something.

At least it seems easy to feed and grow and could be the next experiment for a warm weather PB member who is looking for a new forage fish for their southern strain LMB.

Bill, while it might make a difference on what type of pellets they are being fed (say commercial fish food pellets vs. rabbit "pellets" ) in my pond vs. a public lake 2 miles away, I don't see any difference in the taste of the same species of fish taken from both waters under the same water conditions.

From your link, I assume they are the same fish as the aquarium kind. However they don't get big because of their constraint. They claim those fish will get 3' long, so it sounds like a heck of a fish to get on a hook?!

The spring flood waters get them to spawn. Thus they go upriver when it happens. I suppose a pond that could have control of a flooding level where the water goes up into an otherwise shallow spot, they might reproduce? It could be a good thing they don't reproduce in a pond like HSB or Tilapia.

Sounds like a fish Bobby would experiment with in his Florida potpourri pond?

I wonder how they would affect the food chain in a pond.....

Repackaging and not including country of origin accurately is illegal. You should report to USDA.

As said no problems with US produced farmed fish. Human excretement is used for pond fertilizer in some third world countries. Sorry but that crosses the line for me along with overuse of antibiotics.

Don't know anything about Swai.

Keep in mind there is a lot of misinformation out there are on U.S. farmed fish and caged sea raised salmon. For one thing people want to put third world farm raised fish in the same category as U.S. farmed raised fish. U.S. farmed raised fish have to follow strict protocols. No so with the other.

Also the people that bash U.S. farm raised fish say they are full of pesticides and heavy metals from the feed and water supply. A bald faced lie. The feed is tested and pesticides and heavy metals are not an issue. They push wild caught because in many cases their is a lobby for wild caught.

But here lies the irony: most farm raised fish use an uncontaminated ground water source while our oceans are the dumping ground for everything you can imagine. On top of that if the fish used to make the feed are wild caught from the ocean, wouldn't the wild caught fish that eat the same fish be contaminated too?

One lie I saw recently on folks pushing wild caught is that cage raised salmon are fed kitty litter. There is no way a fish could live and grow on a clay product.

A while back I found a blogger bad mouthing U.S, farm raised fish. All lies with no citations. Come to find out she had a degree from Purdue, but it was in fashion merchandizing! Didn't have a clue to what she as talking about. Oh but you should have hard the people eating it up!

My experiences with swai. I frequently go to the seafood restaurant chain called Captain D's. Several years ago they started selling Southern Style Whitefish (dinner is $5.99) which is a big piece of swai fish lightly breaded and fried; always tastes the same - very good, mild flavor, never fishy, never an off flavor like tilapia sometimes has. It is the only fish my friend and I eat there. We eat at Captain D's 2 - 3 times/mo. He used to always get the tilapia until the swai became available. Tilapia was too inconsistent in flavor while the swai has always been consistently very good.

There is another restaurant that I know regularly serves swai - Beef O'Brady's; menu item called Big Catch & Big Catch Salad. Whenever I go to Beef's I get the Big Catch salad with the fish blackened; a big piece of fish on their tossed salad - again excellent - IMO. It was so good the first time I ate it in FL the flavor and texture was very similar to the Captain D's Southern Style Whitefish (swai). I asked the manager what kind of fish it was. He said they used to call it grouper until the commercial fisherman and officials made them stop calling it grouper since it was not grouper.
Manager says the box label has farm raised grouper, which I discovered is actually swai after using a web search.
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-11-21-florida-fake-grouper_x.htm


Another swai story. My brother's wife does not like to eat like fish. Period. Brother likes fish including YP, WE, salmon, trout, even bullheads, and other ocean species. He keeps trying new types. A couple years ago he bought some swai at Kroger's. Grilled it, wifey tried it, and now the only fish she will eat is swai.

Internet information indicates swai is a Vietnamese catfish that is grown in poor water quality and fed low quality foods.
My thinking is hogs used to (depression era and maybe even a few currently) be fed garbage which lead to common problems with trichinosis. A lot of animals eat 'bad' food including the bacteria. The digestive system then processes and breaks down the food into the basic compounds and biochemically rearranges the basic components to new animal protein, fats, blood, organs, tissue, nerves, fins, scales, bone, etc to grow or develop the new animal. I doubt that few if any of the bad foods that the animal ate are directly deposited to make new animal flesh or body parts. If the swai directly deposited what it ate, it would likely taste pretty unsavory.

When terrestrial wildlife - 'game animals' live on the nature's food (bark, leaves, nuts, vegetation, etc) the animal meat will often taste "gamey". I am not sure why this happens to most wildlife and not fish.

The off flavor of some fish such as catfish and tilapia is usually and often caused by 'bad' algae (often Cyanobacteria) in the water that produce metabolites (likely water soluable types)that are absorbed into the fish flesh. These fishy or earthy flavors will be purged when the "algae soaked fish" is removed for a short period form the offending water source. Some chemicals are fat soluble and will not purge when the fish is placed in 'clean' water.

Other fish flavors. Some fish have a layer of dark meat between the skin and white flesh fillet. This dark meat is usually in fish that are 'hard or strong fighters, swimmers'. This dark meat has a very strong flavor due to the type of chemical in the dark meat that allows the fish to build up a high lactic acid content during muscle stress periods. This allows the fish muscles to work longer before tiring. When the animal rests the lactic acid is removed and the animal is 'rested'. Cut out this surface layer of dark meat from the fillet and the white fillet is very mild. Eat the dark meat and it is very strong flavored. Try cooking some dark fish meat that has been removed from a fish. When we catch larger Great Lakes walleye they have a layer of dark red meat that we remove before cooking. Interestingly the walleye that I have seen from inland lakes rarely have this dark meat. Great Lakes walleye have apparently adapted to more and stronger swimming needs to survive thus the presence of more read meat. Tuna have a lot of red meat in their body which often gives them a stronger flavor.

See!! someone caught on to the need to 'rebrand' the swai. Southern Style Whitefish, BRILLIANT!!

Bill, thanks for the history and your experience on this! Now if i can figure out where the swai came from at Meijer i probably will try it soon.

Too bad no Captain D restaurants here in Michigan. I can drive 133 miles to get to the nearest one



08923 State Road 66 North
Defiance, Ohio 43512
(419) 784-2004

132.29 miles
Get Directions

There is a little bit of talk about raising them in this aquaponic forum

http://community.theaquaponicsource.com/forum/topics/pangasius-catfish

CC, try buying catfish fillets, and slicing off any dark meat on them. Then cook as you would the Swai.

The CC in the grocery stores here don't seem to have any dark meat like the wild fish. I wonder whether it is because it was removed at cleaning or whether the CC raised on farms grow so fast in crowded conditions that they just never develp the dark streak?

That sounds reasonable to me. They also don't have to do as much swimming to catch food. The CC out of our local rivers often have some dark meat and even if you cut it out, they have a more fishy taste. Some mostly older people here like it better out of the river. Probably because they grew up eating it.

Y'all want something nasty eat the bloodline from a bluefish... Now that's bad


Pat W

We had an old horse tank we would throw the ones from the river in and feed them corn for a week or two. Helped the taste a lot!

Great info here, fascinating how they 'promote' the spawn. Also it appears the eggs are sticky and attach to tree roots. Very tolerant of low oxygen conditions. The bar graph on this page shows it is a brand new fish to market with growth of sale mostly in this decade.

FAO info on P. hypothalamus

Red Lobster should be selling swai served several ways including blackened. It would increase their profits. It is great tasting and inexpensive compared to lots of other mild tasting and pricey fish. I like the Southern Style Whitefish better than flounder at Captain D's. The swai is less fishy and has a lot less off flavor that the founder occasionally has. I have never had a bad tasting piece of swai but have had numerous other fish that were not so good in restaurants. Evidently lots of people could not tell the difference between grouper and swai when Beef OBrady was serving the swai as grouper. This should tell you how good the swai tastes compared to expensive grouper.

The one thing about swai is sometimes you will see very small hardly noticeable tendon? strings in the fillet that are more noticeable and characteristic of CC fillets especially if the fillet is moist and slightly under cooked and not well or over or fully cooked. A lot of people never notice these strings until they are pointed out. Over cooking the fillet dries it out and eliminates these tendon strings in the fillet. This is how I recognize the fish as swai and not CC or some other fish. Swai is a form of catfish.
http://www.chefs-resources.com/Swai-Fish-Information-Recipes

The above link also has a link to if Swai is safe to eat and discusses swai's bad reputation. Here is the study for the relative safety of swai. Interesting reading.
http://www.chefs-resources.com/Is-Vietnamese-Swai-and-Basa-Safe

Ok Bill. You have sold me. I will give US swai a try. When I saw the water they were raised in in Asia I had them pretty near the top of my list of "things not to put in my mouth."

Hey, lobster and shrimp are nothing but cockroaches of the sea, but people eat them and smack their lips.

There was something else that kind of looked like shrimp I liked. I think it was called a mantis maybe. Excellent! Getting old and memory is shot.

Edit:

Kind of looks like a cross between a shrimp and a lobster.

Many consider snails (escargot) a delicacy. I think they are too rubbery and fishy tasting.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escargot
If most saw some of the water that the US catfish are raised in many would not eat catfish either. Pen raised pigs, cows, turkeys, and chickens are usually held in pretty filthy conditions walking around in their own deep manure layer in the pen. Most non-farmers do not ever see this. I once saw cows in knee deep manure with dried manure on their lower legs. All this does not affect the meat flavor. Food production animals are not always washed clean like those you see at the county fairs.

It's all about the garlic butter. Yum!

Bill D., I think you are talking about Mantis Shrimp.

If you find any alive, don't pick them up unless you have armored gloves on.

http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/worlds-deadliest/deadliest-mantis-shrimp

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mantis_shrimp

I caught one once near San Diego and was told not to pick it up or grab it or I could get speared. HUH? O.K. IIRC it was around 8"-9" long.

Yep, Those are the guys. The ones I ate look like this photo from the Wiki link you provided. They were awesome barbecued.

I was back at the store again today. I checked the fine print on the bag of swai. It said 'product of Vietnam' Maybe it was good I passed. Someone has to look at fish farming these in the south!

I was just checking the ad's for Meijer in Grand Haven (about a mile away) and this is the first time I have ever seen these. Same price as Tilapia, which is another fish I'll never buy in a store.

Last Thursday I had one swai 'loin' fillet individually vacuum packed from Meijer Markets. The loin was thick at least 1" probably from a larger fish. I sliced it in half for two 1/2" long slender pieces. I often do that with thick back pieces from a fillet of a larger fish. I deep fried one and broiled the other fillet. Taste and texture was very similar to other swai that I have eaten. What amazes me is how they always taste the same even if they are raised in 'bad water'. Taste is very similar to crappie in taste and texture.

Then Friday I was at Captain D's - again. This time I tried their Southern Whitefish Tenders $4.99. Still swai. Still very good tasting although not quite as much fish to eat since it was $1.00 less than the Southern Whitefish meal. As a side note. I saw my old Lk Erie fishing buddy also at Captain D's. He has access to fish of walleye, YP and crappie that he regularly catches. He was eating swai at Captain D's and says that is what he now always gets when eating there. He too said swai is similar to crappie; sort of soft, very white, and mild tasting.

Anything that resembles crappie in taste has to be good eats.

Now you guys got me interested so had to look it up.

What the heck is Swai?

Will have to give it a try next time around a Captain D. None real close to our home.

Long John Silvers has always been my favorite which I understand is Alaskan Pollock (a variety of Cod).

I emailed the cafeteria where I work. From time to time they serve catfish of all types, cod, more and more tilapia lately, rarely some salt water fish (costly). I asked them to try some recipes for swai. They said that last week they introduced it already. They called it 'Basa' When they introduce new fish they usually try it for short runs in limited quantity. IF feedback is good they keep going with it. Much of the success depends how they do it (baked, steamed, topped with cucumber relish, blackened, topped with chili powder etc)

I missed it, but will look for it again. Maybe at the PondBoss conference you can have a Cajun Crawfish and BASA Boil.

Snrub, your link to CR was most informative and helpful, thanks.