What Does Catfish Taste Like? And the Different Cooking Styles

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What Does Catfish Taste Like?
what does catfish taste like

Our modern life is full of various kinds of food which makes us confuse about when we can taste all these kinds of food.

In this article, we will talk about a delicious food that you have to try someday: Catfish.

Catfish is a ray-finned fish with various groups. The have such name because of their prominent barbels that look like whiskers of a cat.

Catfish have three large species ranging in behavior and size which are the wels catfish of Eurasia, the piraiba of South America and the Mekong giant catfish from Southeast Asia , and there is a small parasitic species which known as candiru.

Talking about the market size, first catfish are harvested then they are taken live and transmitted inside tank trucks from their farms to some processing useful plants, where they are exposed to a process operation immediately.

Catfish is considered one of the most controlled quality products in the field of food industry. Also, the Food and Drug Administration itself is regulating its farming.

But What Does Catfish Taste Like?

As catfish is a farmed, grain fed fish, it always has a consistently mild, sweet taste. Furthermore, it can absorb other flavors easily. About its dense, moist meat, it is firm and has lower flake than the ordinary whitefish.

So, you can find that the color of fresh catfish is white to off-white and sometimes pink.

You can also notice some iridescence and translucency. While cooked meat is white and opaque. Be careful! If you find it slightly yellow or reddish, don’t buy it.

And don’t think it will have the oceany odor of marine fish; uncooked catfish smell is very close to the smell raw chicken.

Catfish can be eaten by different ways. It is always cooked in ways which are similar to carp in Europe, while in the U.S. it is known to be crumbed with cornmeal and fried.

There is the Malaysian catfish, which is called ikan keli. It can be fried with spices, which can be cooked by a fantastic fat fryer, at a glance at Fryingchef.co.uk. It can be grilled also and eaten with Thai chillies gravy and tamarind. Steamed rice is always eaten with it. 

Going to Indonesia, catfish could be served grilled or fried. It is called warung in street stalls and it is eaten with sambal and vegetables. This dish is called pecak lele or pecel lele.

And if the fish is squashed in the stone mortar with a little sambal, it is also called lele penyet.

Notice: Lele means catfish in Indonesia.

Catfish is cooked in a delicious way in Hungary! It is cooked with paprika sauce which is typical to Hungarian cuisine. Serving with pasta smothered with curd cheese is the tradition there.

Honorable mentions:

  • Spicy fried catfish – a Thai food
  • The western grilled catfish in lemon sauce
  • Mango catfish taco

Here are some nutrition facts about catfish:

Calories: 135
Fat Calories: 68
Total Fat: 7.6 g
Saturated Fat: 1.8 g
Cholesterol: 47 mg
Sodium: 53 mg
Protein: 15.5 g
Omega 3: 0.4 g

The field of farming catfish is a truly successful story in U.S. seafood industry. The beginning was in Arkansas in the 1960s and then rice farmers and Southern soybean built processing facilities and ponds which was an expansion into an economic powerhouse.

Now, Mississippi Delta has the most catfish farms, with additional production in Arkansas, Louisiana and Alabama.

The usual and typical pond is 16 acres 4,000 to 7,000 pounds of catfish are produced per acre.

The fastest-growing catfish species in the world are the channel cat. In addition, it’s a great and fast protein converter: one pound of catfish for every two pounds of feed (compared to 4:1 for pork and 7:1 for beef).

Now, we know what does catfish taste like, geared up for a new food adventure in your life.

Read more: What Does Tuna Taste Like?

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