Vietnamese Dipping Fish Sauce (Nuoc Cham)

Vietnamese Dipping Fish Sauce (Nuoc Cham)

 Recipe source :Adapted from Vietnamesefood.com

This Vietnamese dipping fish sauce is fiery hot. Its red hue makes the sauce looks very attractive when presented alongside any dish. This sauce is very versatile. It goes very well with Vietnamese steam rice cake and a host of other Vietnamese and Asian delicacies such as deep-fried spring rolls, the Malaysian cucur udang and pie tee, just to name a few.

If you cannot tolerate fiery hot chillies, use a milder variety of chilli or reduce the amount of bird's eye chillies. Make extras to be stored in the refrigerator as it will come in very handy as a chilli dipping sauce. 

This chilli sauce is a hit with my family.

Ingredients

1/2 cup water
2 tbsp fish sauce
1 tbsp sugar
6 bird's eye chillies or chilli padi
4 cloves garlic
1 lime, juiced

Method

1.  Remove seeds of chilli padi. Chop chilli padi together with the garlic.
2.  Boil the water with sugar. When it comes to a boil add in fish sauce. Continue to boil for 5 minutes.
3.  Add in the chopped chillies and garlic. Stir gently to mix well.
4.  Remove from flame and allow to cool.
5.  Once cooled down, add in lime juice. 
6.  Extras can be stored in jars and kept in the refrigerator for later use. 

Fish sauce

Left : garlic. Middle : chilli padi. Right : lime

I am submitting this post to Asian Food Fest  :  Indo China
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