Catfish season

Potato fish season
Excitement over the snakehead fish season during Tet (Lunar New Year).
The anchovy noodle season is back!

Mr. Tam said: "We only catch fish when we cast our nets at night, from 1-2 a.m., and then check them at dawn. On rainy days, the fish run away and we get caught in large numbers. If we've cast our nets in a spot we didn't set them in before, we have to cast them in a different, more distant place the next time."

Casting nets from night until morning yields a few kilograms of catfish.

I remember about ten years ago, back in my hometown, during the season, there were schools of catfish in the ponds, canals, ditches, and rivers in front of our houses, so they were dirt cheap. The kids would take their fishing rods and reel in the fish until their arms ached, sometimes getting pricked by thorns that hurt terribly. But we'd just apply some green oil and keep fishing. Adults would set a few traps or cast a few nets, and their buckets would be full of catfish, still wriggling and squealing. Or, when we were preparing the ponds for the new shrimp farming season, there were so many catfish that we couldn't eat them all... we'd dry them or make fish sauce.

In recent years, snakehead fish has become a delicacy because its population has decreased significantly, and it's also popular with people from other regions, so the price in the market has reached hundreds of thousands of dong per kilogram.

The Tam couple's house in Hung My, Cai Nuoc, is in an area known for its natural shrimp farming and fish ponds. During the brackish water season, there are still quite a few snakehead fish. The rainy season, from April to May in the lunar calendar, is when snakehead fish are most abundant and tastiest, because during this breeding season, eight out of ten fish are as big as a thumb, with bellies full of roe.

The rainy season, from April to May in the lunar calendar, is when snakehead fish are most abundant and their bellies are full of roe.

Snakehead fish live naturally in shrimp ponds, canals, and brackish rivers during the rainy season. They are omnivorous, feeding on various small shrimp and fish, resulting in firm, sweet, fragrant, and fatty flesh. During the breeding season, their bellies are full of roe.

In the countryside, people use wood ash to scrape off the slime from snakehead fish, which can then be used to cook many delicious dishes such as: braised with lemongrass and chili, braised with turmeric, sour soup with fermented rice, sour soup with tamarind leaves, etc.

The little girl went to pick some lemongrass stalks, chopped them with some chili peppers and garlic, sautéed them in a pan until fragrant, added some caramel coloring, then added the fish marinated in fish sauce, and simmered until the sauce thickened or left a little sauce for dipping vegetables. For the soup, sauté garlic, lemongrass, and chili peppers, add water until boiling, add fermented rice, season with sugar, salt, and MSG, add the catfish and cook until tender, then add vegetables such as Sesbania grandiflora flowers, Sesbania grandiflora flowers, or water spinach, banana blossom, okra, season with sawtooth coriander, cinnamon leaves, and culantro, and prepare a bowl of chili salt for dipping – it's a dish that will make you sweat profusely while eating rice.

Snakehead fish cooked in sour soup with fermented rice and water spinach, or braised with lemongrass and chili, are two delicious, rustic dishes that go well with rice.

The meat of the snakehead fish is sweet, firm, fragrant, and fatty, but the most appealing part is the pair of golden, firm, and rich roe that you can eat endlessly without getting tired of it. Combined with the stimulating aroma of lemongrass and chili peppers that tingle the tongue, anyone who has tasted it will forever remember that simple yet flavorful meal with snakehead fish from their hometown.

Performed by Thao Mo

Source: https://baocamau.vn/mua-ca-chot-a39542.html