making do with local fishy finds

Last week Mu cooked. I was shocked when both fish and shrimp appeared on the table! I rarely eat fish here as I don't like picking the hair-like bones that run through even the flesh (unconnected to spine) of the carp raised and served here. The fish Mu found was frozen Basa fillet (aka Pangasius) - a rather nasty bottom-feeding catfish variety farmed in the filthy waters of the Mekong delta. That said, they sell it in the UK where it has to meet European food safety standards. Let's hope they are shipping the same product here and not just the rejected produce.

Back home, I would never eat Tilapia or Basa (I know this is hypocritical as I eat tiger prawns which are also farmed... and in dirty water), but here, I am willing to overcome things I might normally find distasteful in attempts to satisfy seafood cravings. Unfortunately, I try to add flavors with a variety of things and it always ends up being truly unpalatable. Mu, on the other hand, went in the opposite direction adding almost nothing. He washed it, seasoned with salt and pepper, rolled it in cornflour and fried it... and it was unbelievably delicious! And below peppery, garlicky shrimp cooked from frozen. Unfortunately, they look better than they tasted. Just a little too rubbery. The balance between the almost-raw, tender and delicious perfect amount of cooking and the amount needed to sasisfy your inner fear that colonies of bacteria that could have been birthed by possible thawings and refreezings (power outages!) are exterminated is non-existent.