This is a dish I always cooked while living in Tokyo. It’s called 白身魚の甘酢あんかけ in Japanese. Once you remember how to make the sweet and sour sauce, you can cook it with chicken, aubergine, courgette etc,. You can get it done in 15 mins.
An Easy and Healthy Midweek Recipe
This is one of our favourite regular rotations for the weekdays. It’s easy to make, and I always have these basic ingredients at home — frozen fish fillets, sweet pepper, and onion.
Frozen fish: easy to store, low carbs and packed with protein. It’s also perfect for making a super fragrant Indian fish biryani or exotic Thai fish cakes. All you need is a little planning, so that you can thaw the fish in advance.
Sweet pepper: its longer shelf life allows me to always have some at home. I can easily roast them with fish, make a paprika and sausage stew, or stuff them with shrimp in a classic Chinese style.
Now, you have all the ingredients, time to move on to the sauce.
Different Golden Ratios of Sweet and Sour Sauce
Here are 3 different ways.
Chinese: there is a 12345 golden ratio for this sweet and sour sauce — 1 sake, 2 soy sauce, 3 sugar, 4 vinegar, 5 water.
Japanese: 2 soy sauce, 2 sugar, 2 vinegar, 2 water, 0.5 cornstarch (referred to 甘酢あん, quantity for 2 people).
My version: 1 soy sauce, 2 sugar, 2 vinegar, 2 ketchup, 2 water.
I usually don’t add cornflour as sugar can get thickened after cooking.
Sweet and Sour Fish with Peppers Recipe
Once I remember the sauce, I can chop-chop make this dish in less than 15 minutes without looking at the recipe.
Ingredients
Serves 2
- 2 frozen white fish fillets, thawed
- ¼ red pepper, cut into chunks
- ¼ yellow pepper, cut into chunks
- ¼ green pepper, cut into chunks
- ½ small onion, sliced
- salt and pepper
- cornflour
For the sauce
- 1 tbsp ketchup
- 2 tsp wine vinegar
- 1 tsp soy sauce
- 2 tsp sugar
- 2 tbsp water
- black pepper
How to Make
- Pat dry the fish fillets and cut into 4-5 cm width big chunks. Season with salt and pepper, then coat with cornflour.
- Warm 2 tsp of oil in a pan over medium heat, sauté the onion and peppers until softened. You may want to put the lid on to speed up the process. Meanwhile, mix all the sauce ingredients in a small bowl.
- Move the onions and peppers to a side, add the fish fillets to the pan, and cook until one side takes on some colour. Then flip to other side and continue to cook through.
- Pour in the sauce and cook until it is slightly thickened. Serve hot with rice and enjoy!
