duri the cat

Duri, a common catch on almost every other trip to Horsburg lighthouse, Mapur and Tg Pinang. Favor for it's fighting quality if you hook a big one. However, duri scores low points as a food fish. I'm not too sure if this fish really tastes that bad or simply as the name implies, a cat fish, which is a turn off to all anglers...


Anyway, on my Mapur trip a couple of months back. We had good or bad fortune (depending on how you look at it) of hooking up a dozen of decent size cat fishes in the range of 4-10kg. These duris pales in comparison to ang cho in terms of eating quality and some kakis lamented that all these duris will be dumped overboard as we had to make more space for better fishes in our eskies. Chopchopkalipok felt that it is a really a waste to dump all these overboard just because they are cat fishes and decided to fillet the catch with a 4" bait knife. Not exactly an easy task to work with a small knife on a huge carcass. Chopchopkalipok's motto is "make the best out of a situation". With little patience, the carcasses were dressed and the fillets wrapped properly in plastic wraps and chilled down with crushed ice.

Chopchopkalipok's method of storing fish/seafood is,

Never wash seafood or fish with fresh water before storage or at least minimize the contact with fresh water. Only wash with fresh water when you are just about to cook them.

Keep the skin on if any or as a whole. The skin helps to keep the meat good for long storage in the freezer.

Double wrap the seafood/fish with cling wraps before storing in the freezer will prevent frosting on the meat and delay deterioration of the eating qualities of the fish .

These pictures of the fillets show how well the meat were kept after 3 months in the freezer. As you can see, the skin is still "shiny" and the flesh is firm and pinkish in color...


Remove the skin starting from the tail with a sharp knife big enough for the fillet. Make a shallow cut that allows you to "grab" the skin of the tail end. With the sharp edges of the knife facing outwards and already making the first cut on the flesh. Pull the skin towards you while pressing the knife sharp edges against the skin. The hand that hold the knife maintain an angle while the sharp edges separates the meat from the skin. It is no easy feat to maintain the "angle" as angled too shallow, you will waste a lot of meat. If you cut too deep, you will cut through the skin. The hand that pulls the skin may want to pull it in a see saw motion that allows the knife to cut more efficiently...


Once you have successfully removed the skin, you will need to remove the blood residues along the lateral line of the fillet and discard this source of "fishiness".

The fillet is now ready to be portion into however you want them to be. The picture above shows how the fillet is portioned for fish n chips servings.

I would like to start from the rear of the fillet. Using your 3/4 of your palm as a simple guide of how the big the portion should be. Well, there is no hard and fast rule on how big the portion should be, if you have a small palm, the whole of the palm will be quite right. If you are a gorilla, 1/3 of your palm will be good enough.

Start the cut in a single stroke with a shallow angle will enable the portion to look presentable and not too thick in the center to allow shorter cooking time and even cooking of the fish. To make the portion look nice and straight, you may want to trim away any excess flesh and save these trimmings for fish stock or for porridge. However chopchopkalipok do not bother with trimming these away as the portion will be coated in beer batter anyway...

Do stay tune for duri n chips recipe...