Misconception about Dory Fish
By. Nevanda - 07 Mar 2023
lauttimur.com - Consumer is often left confused with the dory menu on some fine dining restaurant that has high price, while there is affordable dory fillet on the market. First of all, those are two different fish that we talked about. The high prices dory usually are the John Dory, while the affordable ones are Pangasius dory.
In Southeast Asia, dory fillet is actually referred to fillet of Pangasius sp., a fresh water catfish. While the true dory fish or the John Dory fish is an edible marine fish that belong to Zeidae family. John Dory has large eyes, silvery deep-bodied, laterally compressed, and roughly discoid body.
John Dory habitat is in coastal water and is native to Europe. This fish can be found in the Europe, Africa, South East Asia, Japan, New Zealand, and Australia. They are demersal fish that live in depth of 5 to 360 metres.
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Pangasius dory or striped catfish is a type of freshwater catfish in originated from countries within Mekong Delta. Pangasius has a scale-less skin with quite long slender body with black to dark grey on the upper body, while the lower body is more whitish.
John Dory has delicious taste with a delicate white meat and firm, flaky texture. This saltwater fish has mild, slightly sweet flavour and can be cook in any methods like sautéed, baked, steamed, or even fried. John Dory is usually sold in a fillet form or whole fish and rare to find in US market.
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Pangasius dory is more cheap than John Dory, so its fillet often used as main ingredient in many street food. This fish has different names on other countries, like in Thailand they called as Pla Sawai, in Vietnam it is known as Ca Tra, in Laos it is called As Pa Sooai, and other regions it is called as Basa.
To fix all the misunderstanding of these two different fish, the FDA has asked fish manufacturers and importers to clarify product labels. Fish fillets that come from Pangasius family is given a name Pangasius dory.
