This is basically sweet sour fish. Not that difficult to do, tedious but not difficult. In
this particular instance, I had trouble frying the fish (the skin stuck to the pan) so the
result was not that pretty - especially when the fish really looked lovely as you can see below.
But it was tasty. I found the red snapper, freeze dried, at a Chinese/Vietnamese store.
Ingredients
Escabeche ingredients
Fish - red snapper, either whole or filet or filet of mackerel (actually, any frying fish will do nicely)
Oil
Flour
Salt
Calamansi juice (or lemon or lime juice)
Oil
Green and red peppers, cut julienne style
Ginger, cut julienne style
Extra ginger
Onion - sliced
Garlic - sliced or pounded
Pineapple juice
Pineapple chunks
Sugar
Tomato Sauce or tomato catsup
Vinegar
Cornstarch
Rub
salt on fish (outside and inside after splitting the abdomen and taking the guts out). Roll on
flour. Fry in hot oil. Set aside.
Pound extra ginger, add a little bit of water and squeeze the juice out. Collect juice. Set aside.
To make the sweet and sour sauce: In another frying pan, heat oil, then add sliced onions and pounded garlic, stir fry.
When the
onion has become transparent and the garlic pieces become brown, add the strips of ginger and the green
and red peppers. Stir fry. Add pineapple juice and tomato sauce or catsup for coloring. If you desire a
sweeter sauce, add sugar; for more sour taste, add vinegar. Add pineapple chunks. And don't forget the
ginger juice. This is really the secret of a good sweet sour sauce. The zesty taste of ginger.
Thicken with
a little bit of cornstarch*. Simmer for about 3-4 minutes.
You can now pour this over the fish and serve. However, I prefer the fish to be cooked a little bit
in the sauce so it could absorb the flavor. To do this, put the fish into the simmering sauce and
simmer for another 3-4 minutes.
*I was just reading this today (August 16, 2003) and added this note: You need to dissolve about a
tsp of cornstarch in a little bit
of water or in your pineapple juice - otherwise you might have a lumps in your sauce. But not that much.
You can also use flour or toasted bread crumbs to thicken your sauce. In fact, I think the kusinero
who used to make escabeche in our house used
toasted bread crumbs rather than cornstarch to thicken his sarsa. I never saw anyone use cornstarch for
cooking back home ... you know why? Because really, cornstarch is almirol! Who would use almirol in
his/her cooking?!
