Here fishy, fishy! Be a good fishy!

So here is my catching up post, this time about fish.


This is the one thing that I make that my wife refuses to eat.  She eats tuna, but it isn't fish because it comes out of a can.  I remember a time when all I ever ate was fish sticks (when I was a child and long before anyone even knew that gluten caused problems) and that all other fish was yucky.  Now I love many types of fish except for Pollock, the fish that is used in all run-of-the-mill fish sticks.


A couple of weeks ago we found a new fish at Target called Swai.  Looking into it, it is a type of catfish, but from overseas to simplify its description.  It is a moderate mercury fish, so one that you can't eat everyday, but once a week is okay.  So I decided to try it today with a few flavor combinations, all out of the back of my head.  Be afraid.  Be very afraid!

 Swai fish baked with Thai Kitchen's Spicy Chili and Ginger Sauce

 Swai fish baked with Italian Seasoning

Swai fish baked with a coating of cayenne pepper, black pepper and crushed red pepper

So I made all three of these for dinner Thursday night along with some spinach, corn, and A Taste of Thai's Yellow Curry Rice, all as side dishes.

The first fish I thought tasted pretty good.  The sauce gave the fish a nice compliment, with it being spicy but not too much with a nice sweet finish.  As you can see by the picture, I almost forgot to take a picture of it before eating it all.

This would be the only one to taste good, but not because it was cooked wrong or the spices were done wrong.

The Italian one tasted watery, and I couldn't figure out why.  Sure, I should have added a bit of salt and pepper to it to bring out the seasoning's flavors, but it quite literally tasted like I was eating a glass of water.

It wasn't until I tried the makeshift Cajun fillet that I realized the problem (once I drank a full glass of water as it was most certainly not done right at all) wasn't the seasoning.  Swai is a rather flavorless fish.  It tastes like nothing at all, and I don't mean that it is unique.  It tastes like a glass of water.  The reason why the first one tasted good was just because of the sauce and that it penetrated the fish somewhat.  The Italian and Cajun seasonings never soaked in, so they just sat on the surface.  This experiment has failed.

I have eaten this fish before though with it being coated in Italian seasoning and bread crumbs, then fried in a skillet with vegetable oil.  That tasted much better than all three of these concoctions.  So Swai is a frying fish, at least for me, but if you want to add fish to your diet but hate the strong flavors, then Swai is the right one for you.  As an added bonus, it is a rather inexpensive fish.  The frozen 24oz bag that I bought cost about $6 at Target.


As an added bonus, I have this unique picture for all to see.

This is a picture of my lovely wife doing something she hasn't done since we met.  She is not only allowing one food to touch another, but she is willingly mixing them!