Balsa fish, yes! It is the fish that was involved in the "real or fake lobster" controversy, eight fresh across the sea had introduced to you Oh! The fish is often mentioned together with the lobster and has been accused of "pretending" to be lobster. However, the fish has been wrongly accused. (Skinned and boned, it looks like a lobster, so why should I be blamed? We won't take the blame. ......) Later on, I will explain how to differentiate between lobster and balsa.
The balsa fish, a fish belonging to the order Catostomatidae, family Giant Catfish, genus Giant Catfish, is native to the Mekong and Chao Phraya river basins in Indochina. Nowadays, it is an important freshwater culture species in Southeast Asian countries, and in Vietnam, it is called 'CABaSa' (CABaSa). Among the giant catfish, Pangasius bocourti and Pangasius hypophthalmus are more widely cultured. They are long and scaleless, with relatively small heads and wide mouths and large eyes.
Bass carp are farmed in Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia and Cambodia. Vietnam is the world's largest producer of farmed fish, can be said to be the dominant industry. Vietnam's balsa fishery mainly focus on the export market, the market is spread all over the world hundreds of countries. Of course, how can we be missing our Chinese market!
Farmers put feed
Greedy balsa fish
Fat fish is good to live, less spiny meat and more
Balsa fish is not only a big individual with a simple appearance, it is a wide range of eating habits, tolerance of hypoxia, not easy to get sick, and the water quality requirements are not too high, especially suitable for high-density farming. The growth rate is also fast, high yield, high meat yield up to 40%~50%, belongs to the high quality economic fish. (Typical good feeder!) The biggest advantage is: no small spines between the muscles. Meat without spines this is really in line with the majority of diners' appetites!
Balsa live whole fish, mostly sold in the country, most of the export of other countries in the form of frozen fish fillets, fish segments, fillets, fish pieces, coated with powder, fish by-products, etc., because of its body fat, suitable for processing and sale.
Balsa Fish Stomach
In large and small supermarkets, we can often see balsa fish in the form of frozen fish fillets (skinless fish fillets), the trade name is not necessarily balsa fish fillets! There may also be many supermarkets where the trade name is labeled as "Longley Fish Fillet" .... The unregulated trade names make us fish eaters tired.
Frozen Balsa Fish Fillets
The past and present of fish fillets, workers are skilled in cutting
The most popular fish fillets are easy to eat. Let's go and take you into a Vietnamese balsa fish processing plant to see how balsa fish fillets are processed!
In the high-density fish ponds, the cheery balsa fish is about to be sent to the processing plant to further sublimate the raw fish!
Buckets and buckets of balsa fish being caught.
The large quantity of balsa fish is delivered to the processing plant, where workers skillfully de-bone the balsa fish and split it into two.
Then it is manually inspected and trimmed.
Finally, the fillets are flattened, flash-frozen, and packed into boxes.
The quality of balsa meat depends on the conditions of the culture water and the quality of the feeds fed to the fish, which are generally categorized as white, pink (or light pink), and yellow (or light yellow). White is the best, pink is slightly worse, and yellow is the worst.
So how do you tell the difference between lobster and balsa?
Longley, a species of flounder. Belonging to the plaice order, tongue sole family, tongue sole genus of fish, commonly known as tongue fish, sub plate fish, etc., of which the semi-smooth tongue sole (Cynoglossus semilaevis) is better known, in our country there have been a lot of areas of culture.
Semi-smooth tongue sole body flat, leaf-shaped, and like a long tongue, so the name "tongue fish". "Crooked mouth and eyes" are all on one side, but also asymmetrical. The scales are small and the dorsal, anal and caudal fins are continuous, and the fish can reach 57 centimeters in length. It is characterized by a wide range of temperatures, salt and adaptability to changing environmental conditions, and belongs to the warm-temperature demersal fish, which mainly inhabits the offshore areas of China.
It is a relatively high-quality marine fish, rich in unsaturated fat Sun, delicious flavor, fish meat resistant to cooking, no fishy taste, high protein content, rich in nutrition. The most important thing is that there is only one main spine, the meat rate is relatively high, is not love to pick fish spines eaters gospel! But the wild half-smooth tongue sole resources are no longer much, and its aquaculture industry also belongs to the emerging period, to be developed, the lack of scientific and effective large-scale commercial aquaculture, so the current market Longley's price is relatively expensive, the price of about 200 ~ 350 yuan / kg.
Longley, sea fish, relatively high nutritional value, breeding conditions are relatively high requirements, scarce resources.
Bass carp, freshwater fish, breeding larger quantities, high growth rate, meat quality and flavor than the dragonfish.
The two, the appearance is very different, but take off the "coat", really let people can not tell the difference! All of them do not have small spines between the muscles, more white meat. Balsa fish fillet instead of dragon fish fillet, simply the strength of imitation, and has been pretending for a long time! Leads to many people think that the dragon fish is the balsa fish. Even some merchants give such an introduction: Longli fish fillet also known as balsa fish ...... (
People are obviously two kinds of fish, in the name of dragonfish, buy the body of balsa fish! Of course, both are fish, there is no advantage or disadvantage, the characteristics are different, just this phenomenon of today's market mess with the product name, so that consumers are very confused ah! For how to distinguish between the two, simple and crude method, is to look at the price, after all, the price difference between the two (of course, this is a bit hanging ......) Meet the "second best" high price to buy balsa fish may also be the case); in fact, balsa fish fillet is obviously very thick, the dragon fish is relatively thin; if you still can not be sure, we will buy the dragon fish whole fish, dressed in clothes you should always recognize it!
The fish are good fish, but to eat an understanding!!!!