What's the deal with Tilapia & Swai?

[David_S]

Originally Posted by velocetwo

You could coat a shoe in parmesan, fry it and it would taste good, but to each his own. Try bluegill or crappie some time, they look similar to tilapia, but the flavor is 10x and sweet!

I've eaten plenty of bluegill & crappie, sunfish as well. Have caught many thousands over the years. Yes, they can taste excellent, but they certainly aren't sold fresh or frozen where I currently live. I'll stick with the tilapia based on availability, flavor, and price.

[It's Ross]

A fishmonger friend warned me years ago that Tilapia was a trash fish. I ate it anyway as it was a good "gateway drug" for a then non fisheater like me. Little flavor of it's own and nice white firm flesh.
Lowly tilapia brought me to appreciate other fish with much more character.

[Face76]

Tilapia, as previously mentioned, is an easy fish to grow due to its ability to live in varying environmental conditions. This hardiness has allowed it to be the fish of choice for many fish farmers who use the fish to produce large quantities of protein at a reasonable price. Farmed fish can, and do, have varying degrees of cleanliness. Watch for these efforts to expand. Yellow perch is another fish to farm species.

[El Wayne]

Ok, so what's the deal with swai? Basically a Vietnamese catfish that tastes less catfishy, no? Everything I've read seems to suggest that, flavor wise, it falls somewhere between basa (mild) and regular catfish (um, catfishy).

Anyway, I ask because the wife brought some home from the market (don't know why) and I plan to cook it up and try it tonight. I'm not very fond of catfish, so I don't really know what to expect.

[El Wayne]

Originally Posted by El Wayne

Ok, so what's the deal with swai? Basically a Vietnamese catfish that tastes less catfishy, no? Everything I've read seems to suggest that, flavor wise, it falls somewhere between basa (mild) and regular catfish (um, catfishy).

Anyway, I ask because the wife brought some home from the market (don't know why) and I plan to cook it up and try it tonight. I'm not very fond of catfish, so I don't really know what to expect.

The Report

Preparation: Filleted, seasoned, breaded, and fried.

Texture: Very soft and moist, almost mushy (typical of catfish). No flakiness whatsoever.

Taste: Very light, almost nonexistent. Very little fishiness, no catfishiness.

Verdict: Like eating catfish without the flavor of catfish. The Mrs has been instructed not to buy this again.

[Jdubbya]

Originally Posted by El Wayne

The Mrs has been instructed not to buy this again.

You should have pointed her to this thread earlier!!

[Korr]

Originally Posted by definitelysomeday

Go with anything wild caught vs. farmed.

Yep.

I was born and raised in Alaska and had a limitless supply of fresh fish all of my life. Even then, getting a good tasting fish was a real crap shoot. I threw away more fresh fish than I ate because a lot of the stuff...just tasted like crap.

If the real and fresh stuff has a high ratio of bad versus good, imagine what the ratio is for supermarket garbage: it ALL sucks. It sucks even more for farm raised garbage like the new catch all term for ****fish: tilapia.

Supermarkets here sell 'fresh' fish at a high premium that I wouldn't feed to a dog.

Beyond that, I wouldn't feed tilapia to mine most hated enemy.

[andy2175m4@yahoo.com]

Tilapia is very attractive to environmental scientists and farmers as a human food because it's one of the few fish out there that can be fed an entirely vegetarian diet.

Other types of fish must be fed some type of meat or other fish, the whole idea behind farming is to turn convert sunlight, air and water into protein as efficiently as possible to feed the human population while polluting the earth as little as possible.

[texasmr2]

From my experience frozen or fresh fillet's are better when they are soaked in milk or buttermilk as that will remove most if not all the unpleasant/gamey taste. I actually prefer Tilapia over Catfish now and have yet to try Swai.