Don't slam your haruan

1

Though catch and release is the sports angler’s code of honour, there are times when we would like to enjoy a good haruan. So here’s a tip.

I used to take people’s advice to pick up a haruan meant for the table and slam it down hard. This is not a good idea.

  1. It caused massive tears in the muscle tissue around the abdomen, which impairs the texture of the fish.

  2. The fish is in so much terror and pain that releases loads of lactic acid, damaging the flavour of the fish.

Better to “bleed” the fella by gutting.

And another thing, if you freeze the haruan fillet for a few days, the flesh developments and excellent texture as sashimi.

2

Yo Arnold,
What if after eating the “Fa Kwat Loong”, I go all lembek? hehehe

It’s just an old wives tale. Have yet to meet someone that has witnessed legs sprouting out when the haruan is slammed.

RainbowRunner

Tightlines and screaming reels

3

Very old wives tale. hehe.

But prof did mention something that I perceived as linked to the old wives tale. he said that the amino acid composition of haruan protein is very similar to human. There are 22 amino acids in the world and each type of protein - plant or animal - is made up of different compositions of amino acids. The meat that is furthest removed from human amino acid composition is horse flesh, meaning we dont absorb their protein very well. I guess that’s why we never hear of horses being farmed for steak.

maybe the inner instinct of those old wives sense what the prof discovered.

4

Slam dunking haruans before gutting them was considered standard procedure until the family maid came along.

Erlinda, our Filipina maid one day saw what my brothers and I were up to with all the noise going on…doing the usual Michael Jordan on one of the few haruans we took home! She stopped us for a moment, took a live one out of our ‘tong’ held it with both her hands and in a split second…“click!!”, there was our fish..motionless, spared from a gruesome death before being eaten. Cool man Linda!!

Here’s the trick..hold the fish’s head from the top with one hand and slide your thumb and forefinger down the side of it’s gills. Get a good grip and then use your other hand to do the same from the opposite direction.
Use both hands to bend the fish’s neck downwards. Do this fast otherwise your haruan will live for a moment longer to experience a very sore neck! Somehow our haruans tasted a lot better from then on!!