13/07/2020

In the morning, I caught one yellow-tail scad. I was so happy that I planned to catch another one for dinner. I was looking at the scenery while dropping the line until  it might be too deep. When I was pulling it up, suddenly it felt heavy. Quickly took the line and lifted the rod, and I saw a long fish coming out of the water. I carried it directly into the bucket with rod, but the fish jumped out and went under the bench beside the helm, so much energy even the line was broken! Later, I found the hook was not in its mouth, but beside its gill, did it crash into the hook again? My fishing skill is a bit unusual. The fish is not very pretty looking and has a flat head and a long body. The wide mouth is covered with velcro-like small teeth, body is covered with round scales, and has a tiny adipose fin near the tail. About 40cm, this might be the longest fish I have caught so far.

Later, I looked it up on the Internet. It should be a species of Saurida a genus of fish in the family of Synodontidae. There are 23 recognized species in this genus: I need an ichthyologist to identify this fish. It is also called lizardfish. They are voracious carnivores and usually live on sandy or muddy bottoms preying small fish and shrimp. Once the prey is caught, it is difficult to escape, thanks to the dense teeth. Its Chinese names are more than one: Xiang Suo, fairy Suo, Sha Leng, dog sticks, nine sticks, dog belly, nine belly (upset belly, in the past due to improper storage, this fish is easy to deteriorate, causing diarrhoea), snake branch, Ding Fish, Lai (Na) ge fish (sounds like ‘that fish’), tofu fish… so you know how common the fish is. Canton people are good at cooking, they use this fish to make refreshing and springy fish balls, which can also be cooked with Puning bean paste. But I chose a simple and conservative way: braised. The result is quite satisfying. The meat is white, soft, tender and juicy. It really has the texture of tofu. It has one major bone with a few soft bones, not too hard to eat. We enjoyed the fish Very much and blended the sauce into rice. Superb! We thanked the fish after the meal, also praised my cooking for not wasting this excellent ingredient.