Ever seen this? Cobbler-$5.99

[onerabbit]

Hi all,
went to the local fish shop today looking for some mullet to cut up & freeze when I saw this............................

I didn't want the mullet with no guts, so I left.

I couldn't help thinking about it as the morning passed & in the end, I had to go back, I even asked permission to take photos, just in case.

What do you guys reckon, $5.99 /kg a good deal (still with the guts in) ???????

[SCOTTYGC]

looks like some sort of catfish?

[rando]

Thats what they call catties in WA,
I wonder if its the same fish we get here, if you read Tim Wintons "Cloud Street" there is a funny piece about , wading the shallows in the Swan with a light, spearing cobbler,
Back to your question $6.00 for whole catfish???,,, "not from this little black duck!!!"

[Lucky_Phill]

call 1800 737 147 and report this. They are catfish and therefore have ' mislabeled ' them.

Phill

[Freeeedom]

The catfish from Lake Argyle (on the Ord River in WA) have been commercially netted and marketed as 'silver cobbler' for many years
Cheers Freeeedom

[tunaticer]

I think they can get away with naming elmost anything in the shops these days catfish marketted as cobbler has been around for at least 40 yrs in brisbane, thats what the old fishos that sold outa the back of carts sold them as back then and yes there was a market for them then too esp during the depression yrs.

Jack

[onerabbit]

I thought the funny thing was mullet was only $1.20/kg with no head or guts.

Muzz

[Dan5]

Yeah freshwater catties from argyle sandgropers love em theres also golden cobbler mmmmm yuk!

[cqfreshie]

I wonder how many people, who knock the old catfish, have actually tried one? Fair dinkum ... I mean really eaten catfish or cobbler.

I do know of some who won't eat one simply because they don't look like a "proper" fish ... they're ugly buggers.... etc... etc. Or ... "I wouldn't eat one of them mate ... they eat all the crap on the bottom".

You really only qualify as a knocker IF you have tried to eat one.

So come on, be honest .... have you?

They're not at all bad tucker.

Cheers.

[rando]

With all due respect, CQ freshie I think if they WERE a good feed people, would be into them ,its not as if they are a rare catch. The fact that most people wont touch em, kinda gives you an idea they are not much chop.
No, Ive never tried them knowingly, but Ive ordered dory at the fish shop before I knew what it really was. And apart from having a texture that is similiar to fish:-X i would say ordinary would accurately describe the flavour.

[Raesen]

IMO I think the fish and the shop selling them should get the "boot" !!! :)

[Jim_Tait]

I'm with CQ Freshie,

fork tailed catties are actually a good feed if cooked right and some species (NB the WA species generally referred to as Cobbler Arius midgleyi is different to what we get on the east coast Arius graeffei ) are a bloody good feed! Arius leptaspis are also good tucker.

Most Australian fish pallates aren't happy unless you can fillet off a big slab and wack it on the barbie! Anything requiring any more finese is 'crap mate!'

Catfish have a firm bit fatty flesh - which if grilled or smoked will flake beautifully - grilled / smoked over an open bush fire just off the lick of the flame with verticle cuts along the flank (to let fat drain out) and a bit of salt rubbed in is my favourite, filleted and cubed their firmer flesh is also good for curries etc.. try before you critisise - or otherwise your being ignorant (truth be known!).

[Freeeedom]

I wonder how many people, who knock the old catfish, have actually tried one? Fair dinkum ... I mean really eaten catfish or cobbler.

I do know of some who won't eat one simply because they don't look like a "proper" fish ... they're ugly buggers.... etc... etc. Or ... "I wouldn't eat one of them mate ... they eat all the crap on the bottom".

You really only qualify as a knocker IF you have tried to eat one.

So come on, be honest .... have you?

They're not at all bad tucker.

Cheers.

Spot on CQ Freshie. I've eaten them several times and agree that they are quite good with firm, white, good flavoured flesh, but having been spiked a couple of times I'd rather just cut them off and catch something a bit less dangerous to handle. The other drawback is that if I do fillet a couple nobody else in the family will even try them - the old "Yuk" factor taking over, so I can't win.
Cheers Freeeedom

[choppa]

much the same as the description of being ""delicious"",,,

themooks has a good post at the moment of his recent trip to Japan,,, i wonder how many of us would sit down to a plate of their seafood delicacies versus what we're accustomed too???????

i personally think that tailor is good for bait and would never waste my time preparing it,,,, thas just me though,,,,,,,,,

choppa

[sandyd]

I have to agree that there is nothing wrong with eating catfish. When over in Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia ask for fish and see what you get. the result is a lot of the time catfish and beautifully at that. :charming: But then while over in those places i never really new what i was eating half the time anyway, just ate and asked no questions. ::)

[murf]

I thought the funny thing was mullet was only $1.20/kg with no head or guts.

Muzz

Gday Muzz

I am sure I seen a sign for mullet at Ballina a couple of weeks ago 50cents/kg roe out? I guess the run is in full swing then
that is cheap if all you want is fillets

Cheers Murf

[ffejsmada]

It's funny how peoples tastes are different.
The Cattie is not too bad, if that's all there was to eat, you'd eat it alright.

Choppa, How can you not like Tailor????? :-/
I honestly think that a fresh Tailor is one of my favourite fishes to eat. I love 'em!!
Wrapped in foil with cheese, onion and tomato. mmmmmmmm

Cheers, Jeff;D

[Deiter]

I've never tried 'em either, but it does get you thinking. There is a lot of ppl who have their own little stigmas, and the old proverbial "one mans bait is another man's breakfast" has never rung more truly.
I mean, generally, the way a fish tastes has a lot to do with what it feeds on. Look at barra for example. Barra taken from a locked freshwater billabong have a 'muddier' taste than their bretheren taken from the ocean side. If you have ever eaten blackfish, there can be a HUGE difference on the pallet between fish - some taste like the weed they have been eating, downright awfull.
Now if i think about it, 95% of the catfish i have caught have been while fishing for snapper. The number of 5kg catties i have called for a good snapper is embarrassing.

It stands to reason then, that if they inhabiting the same water and feeding on similar prey, i see no reason to condemn them as "silt sucking scum", coz they prebably will taste o.k. Heck, everyone loves prwns, and they spend most of their time eating other creature's sh!t off the sea floor!!!!

So next time i catch a 'black snapper' i will put him to the test. After i belt him between the ears a dozen times and trim his fins with my pliers.

Cheers,
Damo

p.s. Choppa, any tailor i can get my hands on goes straight in the smoker - absolutely fantastic!! You gotta try it.

pps. i draw the line at grinners.

[johnlikes2fish]

Catfish is sold at Coles as Basra fillets, not the best but it is ok my friends kids love it as it fried in a curry flavoured batter

[Dirtysanchez]

The way I look at it, ANY freshly caught seafood from Aussie waters, whether it be catty, shark or even ray, has to be 10 times nicer than crap brought in from Thailand or Vietnam, namely "Nile" perch, or Fresh water Bassa

If you have ever been to Egypt and seen the Nile, you sure as shit would not eat any fish from it :D

[FNQCairns]

Rule of thumb! try not to unless absolutly nessesary eat any fish from a populated river who's mouth faces more down than out or up!!

I have eaten east coast catfish, it was OK, was sold as fillets for a while there at least, under a marketing name, mate who fell on hard times used to target them to feed his family in this lucky country of ours, I ate quite a few times from his table catfish also ray, both were entirely edible IMHO.

cheers fnq

[warrior1]

as a kid camping on the pine we ate fresh catty all the time .I think if the water is clean the fish are clean.

[pimp my boat]

I have found that you can eat any thing if you are hungry enough, I also have eaten many thing that i would not eat back in Australia ( the cultural experience).
But at home give me a good fillet of snapper or summer whitting.
I'm in heaven.
I have to agree with Choppa (Tailor is a good bait)

[tunaticer]

Growing up on the pine and around the hornibrook there were days where we would take home a monster 5kg catty for a feed and honestly when they are prepared well and had a bit of salt added prior to cooking they do eat very well.\

Mind you tho I would not target them today for a feed but if i scored another 5kger i would probably give it antoher shot on the plate.

As a kid camping on the pine it was either crabs, bream or catties that sustained us overnight and i dont regret it at all.

Jack.

[shaman]

Bugger it, I'm gonna give 'em a go..................

[shaman]

My youngest bloke will eat anything that swims, so I'll use him as a guinnea pig...

[alfish]

hey guys have you ever heard of or even tried Basa it is commonly used in budget clubs etc. this is farmed in vietnam and is catfish, as with all import farmed fish the boxes have a latin name on the box, though i have no idea what this.

"Most Australian fish pallates aren't happy unless you can fillet off a big slab and wack it on the barbie! Anything requiring any more finese is 'crap mate!'"

never a truer word spoken.

the average aussie does not seem to like any oily fleshed fish, "it's to fishy" it just makes me laugh.
people will then go out and eat sashimi and sushi which are mostly made from oily fleshed fish or atlantic salmon which is the same. ever tried the flesh from around the belly cavity of salmon its fantastic rich with fat and beautifully creamy, both raw & cooked, though usually when cooked its over cooked due to the fact that it is still attached to a thicker piece of flesh.

when i lived in melbourne and shopped @ the vic market the commonest fish i would buy was usually some of the cheapest but it was the freshest (crystal clear eyes, no milky eyed crap for me) as it was from port philip, the only other people that would buy it were the mamas.

black spiny sea urchin roe harvested to order down south for the japenese export market, try them greek style cut out the beak sqeeze in some lemon juice then suck the lot out.

suck out the brown meat from prawn heads, couldn't make a shell fish sauce without the brown stuff.

chilli mud crab the sauce wouldn't be they same without the brown meat from inside the shell

dried cuttlefish, beautiful

jim_tait,
your description sounds very similar to european freshwater eel which is fantastic eating, when i see it on a menu in a japenese restaurant i will usually order it, again beautiful rich moist flesh.

Fresh oily fleshed fish, is the equivalent of Wagyu beef!!!!!!!!!!

has anyone tried eel tailed catties? (this ain't a question for the knockers)

whats the latin name for brissy river catties?

Hey i just dug out my "Le Repertoire de la Cuisine" and found 11 classical variations of cooking CARP.

i hope this stirs the pot, cause if you don't your sauce will burn!!

al

;D

[WHALEOIL]

couldn't make a shell fish sauce without the brown stuff.


Also known as bile?

CARP

Usualy a good bet to make a blowfly vomit.


whats the latin name for brissy river catties?
Shittus Fishus?

Al, your dinner plate sounds less appetising than elephant mans hanky.

[BLOOEY]

W.A. Cobbler is a saltwater eel tailed catfish and it is bloody nice on the chew.The freshwater eel tailed cattie that we get here in Q.L.D. is my favourite freshwater fish on the table.Everything else out of the fresh tastes like mud to me.But if saltwater catties are going for $6.99 a kilo maybe i should become a pro fisher.Ben

[Lazybugger]

Each to his own I reckon. However I think they should have a warning sign next to them because it'd be a shame if some person not familiar with them managed to spike themselves while filleting at home.

[RedEmporess]

makes great crab pot bait

[Jim_Tait]

Alfish,

I like the sound of your cooking mate! I think we have similar taste buds perhaps influenced by a bit of multicultural exposure! I grew up in PNG and also have some good asian mates who are good fish cooks who I try and emnulate.

I make my own 'hot smoked' freshwater eels and eel tailed catties - Yum! (Yellowbelly and impoundment bass are also great done this way)
Crispy fried giant freshwater prawn heads - full of fat Yum! - they comprise a third of the prawn so why waste it - take off the carapace -give it a single wack with a mallet - then fry in hot oil - eat with a bit of 'pric nan pla' (not sure if thats how you spell it - birds eye chilli sauce made with fish sauce and lime).

Also notice how many Aussies can't handle eating fish off the bones (slows you from woofing it down!) - but if you do take the time you find that many small fish species are some of the most delicious - try a plate of fried spangle perch for instance, or rifle fish, or giant glass perch etc etc

Regards and greasy chops - Jim

[onerabbit]

Cheers for the comments guys,

just for the record, I have eaten heaps of eel-tailed catties when I lived near Glen Innes, they are great tucker.
Never been tempted to eat one out of the Richmond though.
I just found it interesting to see them for sale, mind you, I was in the same fish shop a couple of weeks ago & they had a tub of "Mixed Fish" on display for $5kg,
right on top was a seargent baker about 2 feet long, makes you wonder...........

Muzz

[stonecold]

Muzz I saw that tub of cobbler and the same thing passed through my mind.

[Leeann]

It'd be nice to think that these "Cobbler" are the Australian catfish and the fish shops still label that imported catfish cr*p as "Basa".

We stayed at Lake Argyle for a couple of days in 1994 and they had re-named the catfish as cobbler for marketing purposes. I think they may have been named "Silver Cobbler" but i can't remember for sure. I've eaten a few and they're not bad though the rest of the food at Lake Argyle in their restaurant left a lot to be desired!!

[finga]

Catties, doggies all great to eat.
We eat the eel tailed variety out of Lesley Dam...beautiful
Catties from clean waters of the Logan etc....beautiful
Doggies are just the same as catties but you have to be in Northern NSW to call them doggies.
Fillet and skin is all the prep. we do then cook in the pan with some butter and breadcrumbs ...yumm :)

[rando]

Not sure about cobbler & or eel tailed catties but as far as the local variety go
sorry Im not convinced.
They are smelly ,slimy and dangerous to handle, aanndd despite what some have said, they taste bland at best( based on the flavour of dory AKA basa).
There are so many other good to eat fish, why bother with something thats such a pain to process .
I doubt Cheech would even let me take one on board,;D

Hey Alfish
you must have trained as a cook, "repetoire" is the tool of professionals:)

cheers
rando

[szopen]

People do have strange attitudes to food.

I have never eaten the "cobbler" but have eaten carp, eel, other catfish (the EuroAsian wells), tilapia and if coming from clean water they all tasted good.

Last week I have seen in the market smoked eel at 85$ a kilo.

[szopen]

Another thing I wanted to add.

Catfish is a name given to a large variety of fish both fresh and salt water so making assumptions on how all of them taste based on farmed Mekong Catfish AKA basa/dory (which is a plant eater and not a predator) is a bit misguided.

[Dirtysanchez]

Last time I was in Hervey bay my mate landed a catty in the mary river, would have been 3KG, then he said come on mate, help me sort it out so I can take it home for the Mrs to clean.... I wrestled the slimey bastard with a rag for a few minutes, got spiked twice, and stabbed myself in the hand with the knife while trying to find a way to despatch the fish kindly !!! :o

We got there in the end, and took it home.. His Mrs and her sister are Philipinos so no worries she says, I will cook it up traditional style.
The smell was enough for me, JC and I broke out some snags for the BBQ :o

She said it was OK to eat, plain though.

But for 2 blokes in a tinny, who had been out for 4 hours and put away half a dozen stubbies each, we had to have something to show !!

Still curious about tasting one, but all that coconut milk and herbs and spices put me off this time !! :D

[dogsbody]

Dolphins love em, seen a show where they were biting them in half and leaving the dodgy end behind. Maybe they are trying to tell us something.

Caught a whopper at the brissy river mouth (coffee pots) perhaps i should have kept him and gave it a red hot crack. Next time maybe.


Dave.

[alfish]

hey rando, i've been sprung, nothing like a few coopers to lubricate the typing fingers.

heys guys i thought this was a fishing forum, i was hoping for a few more bites from my rant!!!!!!!

dirtysanchez you don't know what you're missing, you shouldn't come to my kitchen when i'm frying off some balachan then.

al ;D

[ozbee]

I have been lucky to catch three of those catfish two over forty pounds and one about twenty something which was left after a shark had a big bite on the way up. Two i have released with young in there mouth. all were caught just off the coast fishing for grunter (javelin) large up to 20 lbs also Spanish mackerel on top to give you an idea of the area.anyhow I've tried the flesh of one of these and it was nicer than the Spanish mackerel, so you really have to try it to judge it fairly.

[-Henno-]

I will obviously eat anything if you have read what I have been up to. I think I agree with phil though that they should be reported for the old false advertising whether it is crap or the best fish on earth.

I'm sure I sure something on telly before I left the goldy saying that they had passed legislation in queensland to make it illegal to falsely name a fish for sale.

[tunaticer]

There was an old old friend of mine when i was a kid that had a rowboat moored in the fourmile creek at the back of strathpine. He took me out in the old row boat several times whenever he saw me on the bank fishing (as i always was back then).
One day i caught a little 3 inch catfish. He quickly took hold of the lil spiky bugger and whacked a hook thru its tail and sent it down on his handline.

No more than three minutes would have passed before he was pulling in a bloody great big bream. I kept him supplied with catties and he kept on bringing in big bream and flathead on the things.

Maybe if we look beyond the stigma catfish hold for most of us and found good things for them we might appreciate them a bit more.

They are quite good eating prepared well and as crab bait they are good and as a small livey that are very good.

I wonder how many ppl would be as knocking of catties if they had scales and no slime?

Jack

[onerabbit]

Wow ozbee, the 40lb ers must have gone hard, my best is around 4kg (stood on that one).

The point of the thread wasn't to bring any stress to a certain W Ballina fish shop,
I just couldn't believe anyone would buy Blue Catfish (Dogfish, Fork-tailed , silver .......whatever ), especially at $6 a kg with the head & guts.

Certainly made the mullet with no head or guts at $1.20kg look good.

Muzz

[el_carpo]

I love catfish! HOWEVER, it's like some previous posts said, they have to come from clean water. Catfish are prized over here for their flavor and fight. The best time to catch them (for eating purposes) is in cooler weather. The algae is gone.

One of the best fish dinners I've had was catfish and the worst was also catfish. I caught some catfish from a lake in the early spring when the weather was cool and they were incredible. I've also bought "farm-raised" catfish thinking that they would be kept in proper conditions and would taste good. WRONG!!! They tasted like algae and mud. I took one bite and threw them away. What a waste. Terrible.

As far as the bogus fish labelling goes, that ticks me off too. They've been doing that stuff for ages over here as well. You'll see two fish that look nothing alike labelled "ocean perch" or something and if you ask the guy behind the counter what exactly that means, he'll shrug and say, "beats me." Same thing happens in restaurants.

Sooooooo...unless I catch them myself or am 100 percent SURE about what I'm looking at and if possible, where they came from, I pass on buying fish.

[mangomick]

I saw a report somewhere on catfish bred in the drains in vietnam and imported into australia.
Nothing wrong with catties caught around the reef here but dont know about eating catties out of drains from vietnam or even from brackish waters in Oz. Too stinky. Mate cooked a catty I caught out the reef a while back for the boys at workand general concensus was great. Didnt tell them what it was before they started eating though.
I've tried the eel tail catfish out of fresh water and bloody terrible
Did anyone see the report on Nile Perch being bred in drains over in Africa. Somewhere where they had been a civil war and the farmers were harvesting the big nile perch at the same time moving dead bodies out of the way.

[ozbee]

yes they do pull like hell bit like a big cod a bit faster but the old catty head shake still there. be interesting to know there life cycle i imagine they dont breed until a very old age.

[warrior1]

isn,t there two kinds of salt catties in qld ? the ones i have caught in the bay are more silvery and have flatter head