Sweet & sour fish
In Chinese restaurants, we order it as sweet-sour fish (or pork). In Filipino cuisine, we call it “escabeche”. Sounds Spanish, doesn’t it? Whatever the origin, this recipe has been Filipinized in so many ways both in terms of preparation and ingredients.
How many versions of sweet-sour sauce have you come across with? Plenty, I bet. Me too. And I have been experimenting with them for many years. Getting the right consistency, color and blend eluded me for a long time. My sauce was always either too thin, too thick, too pale or too dark. I thought I had the proportions all wrong. It turned out I was using the wrong ingredients.
While a lot depends on individual preferences (some like it more sour; other prefer it more sweet) and quality of ingredients, I discovered a few tricks over the years. First, don’t use food coloring to achieve redness. Food coloring adds nothing to the flavor. Second, don’t use catsup, either. The sauce will never taste right. Third, the amount of vinegar is not directly proportional with the amount of sugar. You need more sugar than vinegar. How much more will depend on your taste. Fourth, never forget to add salt to the sauce. Fifth, ginger is a must when making sweet-sour fish. Sixth, a few drops of sesame seed oil spells magic. This time, I think I finally got it right.
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29 Responses to “Sweet & sour fish”
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Salamat din, Joy.
connie,
thanks…its a great help
jing:smile:
hi, i am never a big fan of sweet and sour dishes, but this one is really fab!
thanks,
mildred
Hello!
I am Celia. I want to learn other recipe and i found out that sweet and sour specially fish is great. I want to impress my husband and my children to eat this viant na ako ang magluto. Pls. send the recipes and how to cook it. Salamat.
Hello Celia, the recipe is on page two. I don’t e-mail recipes.
Hi,
Pasend din po sa akin…thanks!!!
Naia, hindi mo nakita yung response ko kay Celia?
hello i will try this one salamat:)
I normally use snapper for sweet and sour recipe, but I found this really fresh gold bream at the market today. Will this fish work well with sweet and sour sauce? We are having guest tomorrow and he wants me to cook the fish with sweet and sour sauce.
Thanks
I have no idea what gold bream is, sorry.
this recipe is so perfect…
i’ve done sweet & sour before but not as good as this…
so, thanks!
thanks a lot for the recipe, it helps me to cook easier and quicker especially for a working mum like me.
hi i found a pinoy cook i want to lear how to cook a sweet and our fish please send me a recipe pls. coz i want to sever this to my friends they want to eat sweet and sour fish and i dont know how to cook thank you i wish you can send me thank you.
hello ms. connie! i’ve been craving to eat fish in sweet and sour sauce since last year. 2 days ago i looked on your website(my favorite pinoy cook website) and tried this recipe.it was my first time to cook this and i was hoping that my husband and parents-in-law would like it.while we were eating lunch, they kept saying “hmmmm lekker” (masarap)
they ate it with potato and i ate it with rice.
thanks a lot for sharing your recipe.
tnx po sa recipe!
I just got married and I keep going to this website to find dishes to prepare for my husband. He’s an American but he loves Filipino dishes. Salamat sa pag-share ng iyong recipes!
Hello guys. Just wanna say thank you very much for all the recipes. Am very far away from Philippines but still i have the Filipino style and my husband is south African he`s a chef cook and am really trying hard to learn how to cook so the only way that can makes me easy in cooking is to look always in this site and follow all the ingredients and it makes me easy. i`ve been downloading some of the recipes copies and i tried cooking them and it really works. my husband say it taste nice and very good especially the ADOBO, one of his favorite Filipino food. well, i will not stop seeking some of ur recipes guys as it help me a lots and thank u so much…..
[...] sweet and sour tilapia. recipe courtesy of pinoycook [...]
connie, lol i cooked just now. kaya lang was trying to re read all your instructions di ko makita when to put the sugar kasi kaya pinaka huli ko na sya nilagay ok lang masarap parin! hahaha…:))
salamat for posting..:))
Lucy, I edited the entry.
These several year old entries need updating LOL
i will try your sweet and sour recipe!!!
i thing it will taste good!!
more power!
your recipe in great!!
it’s look great this is my favorite sweet and sour fish i try this tomorrow.. thanks ..
Its very delicious. Thanks to you…my husband liked it..
hi hmmmp nkkamiss kainin yan lalo n pag ns ibangbansa ka, my husband love filipino food, so ittry ko yan…specially n katulad kong hindi marunong magluto, pls send mo nman saakin yun recipe, thanks godbless!!!
My Norwegian husband loves all Filipino dishes like adobo, pininyahang manok etc.. Tonight’s dinner will be sweet and sour fish. This is the second time I’m going to cook ‘escabeche’. Thanks for the recipe. It’s a great help for a housewife like me here in abroad.
ive been always looking for the right ingredients when cooking though i already knew how to do it… the problem ,is when i start to leave outside the country people and friends starts asking me to cook filipino food for them.. esp. my boyfriends relatives… thank you for providing me such a nice site to visit from time to time..
more power to all of you…
godbless…..
hello ms. connie…im an avid reader of ur blog…inaabangan ko talaga if may bagong labas kang receipe…and i already tried some of ur receipes and its very very good… btw, ask ko lang paano ba igarnish ang sweet and sour? i will cook sana dis in our upcoming fiesta dis weekend….hope u can help me ms connie… and more power to your blog pa coz u helped a lot of people…including me…:-))