Sweet & sour fish
April 27, 2003
Filed under Asian cooking, Chinese recipes
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.
Ingredients :
1/2 kilo of firm, fleshy fish (2 pieces)
a few slices of ginger
a tsp. of roughly chopped garlic
salt
1-1/2 to 2 c. of cooking oil
1 bell pepper, sliced
1 carrot, sliced
1 onion, cut into eighths
1 tomato, cut into eighths
1 tsp. of minced garlic
a few matchsticks of ginger
For the sweet-sour sauce :
1/2 carrot, diced or sliced thinly (your choice)
1 leek stalk, cut into 1/4″ slices (optional)
a small piece of ginger, sliced thinly
1 bell pepper, julienned
1 tomato, diced
3 tbsp. of vinegar (you may need more if using mild-strength vinegar)
6 tbsp. of sugar
1 tsp. of salt
1/2 tsp. of hot chili sauce or 1 hot chili pepper, broken in half
1 tbsp. of tomato paste
1 tbsp. of cornstarch or tapioca starch
1 c. of water
sesame seed oil
Cooking procedure :
Score the fish across the back. Rub the skin, flesh (where you scored it) and insides with garlic, ginger and salt.
Heat a skillet or wok. Pour in the cooking oil. Heat oil until it starts to smoke. Fry the fish over very high heat until golden. Remove from oil and drain on paper towels.
In a small saucepan, mix together the vinegar, sugar, water, salt, chili sauce, starch and tomato paste. Set over medium-high heat until thick and the cloudiness has disappeared. In another saucepan, heat 1 tsp. of oil. Add the carrots. Stir for a minute. Add the leeks (if using), bell pepper, onion, tomato, ginger and garlic. Stir for 15 seconds. Pour in the sweet-sour sauce and bring to a boil. Turn off the heat. Add a few drops of sesame seed oil. Pour over the fried fish. Serve at once.
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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…:-))
hello, i hope you can send me more recipes, miss na namin lutong pinoy dito sa kuwait.. God bless..
i want to learn more recipes….
Salamat tlga mas masarap na ang niluluto ng nanay ko!
maraming salamat po laking tulong sa aming mga pinoy sa lupa ng arabo, na ‘indi marurunong magluto.
god bless.