‘Dory fillet’ from Carrefour

Recently we bought ‘dory fillet’ from Carrefour. Price was RM3 for 500g.

This fish is really getting cheaper in the retail market. A year ago, you could get RM60 per 10kg that comes in a box if you bought from a wholesaler.

 

Noticed that Carrefour labels the fish as ‘dory fillet’?  At worst, this is just plain mislabelling. At best, it’s not too far from the name ‘cream dory’ that are quite popularly used to describe the fish fillet. But calling it ‘dory fillet’ is misleading and insult to the actual dories of the world, especially the delectable John Dory. Most of other hypermarkets in Malaysia are using ‘sutchi fillet’ to label the fish fillet. There are a few packaging that uses both the labels for the fish fillet!

 

What exactly is the origin of ‘sutchi fillet’?  The fish is scientifically known as Pangasius hypophtalmus, or Pangasius sutchi. It is sold under many different names depending on where you happen to be in world:

• In Malaysia, it’s ‘Dory fillet’ for Carrefour, and ‘Sutchi fillet’ for others. Locally it’s also known as ikan patin in Malay.
• ‘Swai fillet’ in the USA.
• ‘Thailand catfish’ in Taiwan
• oh, and United Nations Food and Agriculture (FAO) is replacing the name catfish sutch to striped catfish. Mentioned here in the French version of Wikipedia (translated).

The French version of Wikipedia has better information on this fish compared to English version here.

There have been some controversies surrounding this fish, mainly perpetrated by these 2 sites though both articles are similar:

• http://www.dietmindspirit.org/2008/01/30/why-you-shouldnt-eat-this-fish-pangas-pangasius-vietnamese-river-cobbler-white-catfish-gray-sole/
• http://www.whytraveltofrance.com/2008/01/30/why-you-shouldnt-eat-pangas-fish-in-france-or-anywhere-else-for-that-matter/

I believe the article was overly provocative and contains many factual errors.

However there’s no denying that (on average containing 82% water, 15.5% protein and 2% lipid) the fish fillet itself does not have much nutritional value other than offering a good taste, which was the reason it is so popular besides being cheap. I had also mentioned the nutritional value, or lack thereof, in this earlier post.

So, when buying this fish fillet, I am aware of the lack of nutrition. It’s just that it’s easy to prepare and tastes good. Being conscious of that fact, we usually try  compensate with other nutritious food ingredients for our meals.