These are all wild caught fish! Photo credit: Biao Have you seen the labels, "Wild Caught" or "Sustainable Fishing" in the supermarkets? Ever wonder what it means except for paying more? If you do then this article will be interesting for you because I bring you back to earth and share with you my take on "wild caught fish" in Singapore and how to appreciate it. First of all, you can throw away that concept in your mind that wild caught fish can only be found in the supermarket (with all the labels and such) and it must always be some sort of cold water fish such as cod and salmon. It's actually very simple because in the sea/ocean/river, there is only generally two kinds of environment - farm and wild. So in theory, that means if you pick up a fishing rod, go to Bedok Jetty and catch a tamban, that is also known as a wild caught fish! Many markets also do sell wild caught fish without the labels at decent prices.  It doesn't have to be something t...

Few hours of casting. All fish are not wasted. "Very long never go fishing leh... heightened alert coming, cannot fish already" followed by "Come let's go!" When you have such fishing kakis like Jeff, a short few hours fishing getaway is always possible. We picked up some prawns and drinks for sharing and we were good to go. Casting live prawns for barramundi (seabass, KBL, siakap) with Jeff was always interesting and has always intrigued me. The rig was just a simple leader line and a 2/0 or 1/0 hook with no split shot. Similar to what you would do at the fishing ponds, you would cast out your bait and spin it back. Except that there were alot more rocks here and the fish could be a lot more bigger. The spots that we are fishing for our target barramundi are shallow beachfronts with rocks and debris. The average depth was around 2 to 3 meters and the bigger fish would hang about the shallows, waiting to ambush baitfish.  The night started "fast" like ...

Meaty Indonesian Mud Crabs! My thoughts on Sri Lanka Mud Crab vs Indonesia Mud Crab To be honest, most folks in Singapore don't really choose mud crabs down to the exact breed and location. Most of us just go to restaurants and order the crabs, bearing in mind the usual market rate. However, this is not always recommended as there are so many kinds of crab available in the market. For example, crabs from Indonesia, Sri Lanka (or India), Vietnam, Philippines and so on. The grades do differ and when you are going to buy your own to cook, you might want to take note. There are quite a number of resources online and nothing Google can't solve! The way of tying and the material used (vine, rattan, raffia) are tell tale signs of where the crab is from. Sri Lanka crabs tend to have the vine kind of material. Look at the tying material. This usually gives hints to where the crab is from. I actually love the Indonesian mud crabs! They are cheap, mostly meaty and of good quality perhaps ...

Give me a choice and I will pick good flower crabs over mud crabs any day. Flower crabs are easy to eat (you can use your hands or teeth to crack the shell), super sweet and if you get solid ones, they can be meaty! But of course, I'm also spoilt by being a seafood enthusiast and I only eat big flower crabs... Seafood boil! Ingredients were beer, chinese wine, garlic and ginger Ordered some from Great Harvest Fisheries at decent prices ($25/kg for large, $20/kg for medium) and wasn't disappointed as the crabs were meaty and fresh (they were alive lol). Live flower crabs rarely have issues and I had them as a seafood boil with other shellfish such as mussels, gong gong and clams. Really hassle free and quick way to prepare seafood. The large crabs were around 250g to 350g and although they weren't the biggest I've eaten, I was still happy :) The large ones were 250g to 300g Crab seafood boil Their mussels were also good. I was quite concerned as local green mussels usual...

The best bones to use for making fish broth is the red grouper bones! In fact, I don't even fry the bones. They go straight into the pot for boiling. Given the simplicity in preparing a solid fish soup, sometimes I really don't understand why would folks queue and pay top dollar for fish soup. I've been experimenting with different styles of fish soup now and I can share with you that tweaking it to your own preference and taste is important. Below is a simple recipe to get started. The reason why we usually season the batang fish in fish soup is that the texture is usually not firm enough and sometimes if not fresh might contain a "fishy" smell. My seasoning it, we can improve the texture and taste. Many of you will recognise this as "starchy" texture sort of like the texture you get in heavily seasoned prawns in siew mai. Steps to create fish broth Get about 500g of batang fish bones. Prepare a few pieces of ginger slices. Pan fry the fish bones in 1 t...

Let's face it. Farmed Mangrove Jacks are going to be a regular occurrence because of religious fish release groups in Singapore. In fact, it is now one of the most common fish caught at Changi waters and the reason is that it is probably one of the cheaper fish to release. Such activities won't disappear overnight and is also starting to occur at the Southern Islands side. Some of the fishing boats have already caught farmed fish there. So what can we do as anglers? I don't think we are able to structurally change culture that fast but one thing we can do is the cull these species as they are able to spread bad genes and diseases to our wild fish. In time, they may also possibly alter behaviours of wild fish. Rather than choose to lament, let's find ways to enjoy our fishing hobby in Singapore. Hence, below I present to you an easy baked garlic and herb mangrove jack recipe. You can also use it for golden snapper, red snapper and barramundi or rather all fishes even! I ...

Why are crabs so tasty and delicious? Why are flower crabs so delicious? I had another go at B&B Fishery Service's extra large and meaty flower crabs and I wasn't disappointed. In fact, this round was even better as ALL the crabs were meaty and of consistent quality. Remember I told them that were was one slightly water crab ? Seems like they took my feedback seriously and made sure quality was 100% good. The current batch of crabs (I'm told) are live crabs and delivered fresh right after harvest so there's no soaking in ice or transferring to markets to try and get them sold. This ensures that the crabs are as fresh as they can be and anyone who knows their crabs know that the meat quality deteriorates very quickly. In fact, once the crabs die, the deterioration process begins! Kudos to B&B for taking care of this very delicate but important challenge. Okay I talk too much. Here are the photos that I took! Recipe was just simple hua tiao wine, salt and...