Escabecheng Tonto

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There are two interesting stories that go with this dish. First is the tonto part. Tonto, literally meaning stupid, is the name of the fish. My husband was in Marikina City yesterday and, since the kids were again hankering for fish (we had catfish and tilapia earlier this week), I asked if he could pass by the Marikina public market to buy some. There is an old lady there from whom we regularly buy our fish whenever we do our marketing in Marikina. So, he did. I was expecting he would buy the usual tilapia or maya-maya but he came home announcing he had two beautiful pieces of tonto. I said, “what?” He smiled and explained that the old lady was trying to sell him a 3-kilo maya-maya which, of course, was too much for us. When he told her so, she suggested tonto. Since we had been buying from her for months, and we trust the quality of the fish she sells, he decided to try the tonto. He had already set his mind on sweet and sour fish for dinner.

Tonto is a medium-sized fleshy fish. The two pieces you see on the photo weighed 11/4 kilograms. It is not an oily fish like salmon. The bones are easy enough to spot and pick, hence, it isn’t difficult to eat. Tonto has very fine scales. If you’re planning on deep-frying it, there really is no need to scrape off the scales; they are so fine that they will turn crisp after deep-frying.

That’s the first story.

The second story has to do with the escabeche part of the name. Escabeche, or pickled, is the Filipino counterpart for Chinese sweet and sour dishes. Traditionally, Chinese style sweet and sour sauce is red. Now I’ve been told by a friend who grew up in Marikina that in his hometown, escabeche is cooked with achara (atsara). Interesting, I thought, a paler version of sweet and sour dishes.

Escabecheng Tonto

So I wanted to try the Marikina-style escabeche. There was just one problem. My husband and kids would look for the thick Chinese style sauce. There was also the fact that my younger daughter and I both have bad colds and a vinegar-based sauce might irritate our throats even more. I thought, something milder… The photo you see is the result of all these considerations.

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June 10, 2004  Print This Post   
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2 Responses to “Escabecheng Tonto”
  1. cooksie says:
    March 16, 2007 at 5:07 am

    hi connie! ive started cooking some of ur recipes and this is one of them…my partner was requesting for a fish dish for supper and i tried this menu for a change…it ended up abit too soury…i used lemon as calamansi is not available here…is 3/4 cup of lemon not too much? my partner enjoyed it though khit medyo napaasim

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  1. Lemongrass tamarind chicken, a Vietnamese sweet and sour dish : Feast Asia says:
    February 9, 2009 at 9:48 pm

    [...] finds the basic sweet and sour dish in the cuisine of every Southeast Asian country. We have our escabeche; the Thai have their Pad Preow Wan Kai (they even have a name for their sweet and sour sauce [...]

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