Fishing ....

Since my brother came back for good, he has been taking over the care and maintenance of dad's fish ponds at our village. Dom is an avid angler and, to date, has added on a variety of fish species to the pond. It used to be a pond for catfish and red tilapia only. But nowadays, he had added pacu, patin and siakap. The latter was an experiment on his part. He added them last week :-) all 100 of them ....

Dom is setting the simple canvas cover in case it suddenly rains ...while my cousin got the fire going ...

We did a few rounds of fishing ...i dont really like to fish here coz I am scared of catfish ..they are one ugly creature ..with its long mustache! but for an angler, catfish is good as it gives as good as it get when they got hooked to the bait ....i prefer the little fish compared to catfish ...but i went to fish here so that i can help to keep an eye on Al ...he was jumping up and down when daddy gave him his own fishing rod ..and surprise surprise ...he managed to catch a toman fish ...he face just light up with happiness ...hehehehehe and keep on shouting lol ....the way he sounded was like he managed to land a big white shark instead hahahahaha ....but sadly no picture, coz i was busy trying to steer him away from the edge of the pond ....and my camera was under that canvas thingy at the time

he was impatient! Daddy did not allow him to go near the water edge till the canvas was set up ..and till daddy checked all the railing are sturdy ...hehehe ...and mummy cant wait to go to the rambutan tree to get some rambutan for us

view from the other side of the pond ...this photo was taken by the little monkey :-)

Dad was saying (just the other day) that we should bring the kids for these sort of activities more often ...as kids this day and age are very much out of touch with nature ...all they are familiar with are tv, iPad, lappy, online games ...and it would be good to toughen them up ...emmmm i think he has a point there :-)

Life at the cottage: Mangoes and Dabai

There were plenty of mangoes back at our orchard the last time we were there ....all we have to do was going down the river bank and pick up the fruits ...the ripe mangoes tend to fall off the tree ....so, there wont be any need for us to climb the tree or to pluck it ....

pick of the day ...from our own tree :-)

My mom and dad planted lots of fruit trees in our orchard ...if i am not mistaken, they started planting these trees way back in late 1980s ...I was still at school then ...and since then, they had planted numerous variety of fruit trees - rambutan, durian, mangoesteen, longan, jackfruits, tampoi, dabai etc etc ...and those trees had already mature and started to produce lots (and i mean A LOT!) of fruits ....those who benefit from this are us - the children and grandchildren ....

the mangoes - sweet and fresh!

besides that, we also went to pluck our dabai ...for those who do not know what it is, or who have not seen dabai before, it actually tasted a lot like olive ...and the colour is more or less the same ...dark purple-ish colour, with oily flesh ...

dabai ( Canarium odontophyllum of the family Burseracea)

This fruit is very popular in Sarawak ...often fetched around RM18-29 a kilogramme ...my friends who have never seen this fruit before often asked me how do we cook it ...well, there are a few ways to cook this ...well, the truth is, you don't really "cook" it ...here are some tips on how to prepare your dabai dishes:-

(i) soak the fruits in hot water till it soften ...and then eaten as it is, or with a dash of salt ...and some people might prefer to take it with a dash of soy sauce ...accompanied with hot, steaming rice ...; or

(ii) alternatively, you can take out the flesh of the softened dabai (throw away its seed), and sauteed with onion, garlic,and a little bit of fresh chillies (if you want it hot); or

(iii) dry the soften dabai in hot heat (outside, under the sun) for 1-2 hours, then marinate it with lots of soy sauce (thick or light soy sauce), dash of sugar, a bit of olive oil and leave for an hour or so; or

(iv) you could preserve it in salty water ...and it can last for 6-12 months (but it became salted dabai).

A friend of mine told me that she made pesto from dabai flesh - just replace the pine nuts with dabai flesh. I have yet to try this, as the dabai season just ended. Perhaps I could try it next year :-)