To take away fish sauce (Nước Mắm ) from the Vietnamese is like draining blood from a living soul, deflating a floating helium balloon or driving a nail into a tire. Slowly but surely, all life would slowly cease. Extreme as this may sound, this is how vital this golden elixir reigns in Viet cuisine ( well, at least in my family’s Viet cooking). Like how olive oil is to the Italians, Red wine is to the French, and ketchup is to my french fries, fish sauce is to the Vietnamese. It’s a pure, pungent nectar sent from the fermented fish gods to grace our breaths and Viet inspired dishes.
One of the very basic staples of fish sauce is the dipping sauce that can be used as a dip for spring rolls, as a dressing for noodles and rice or as a marinade for grilled meat. It’s like magic when you take fish sauce, mix it with a little lime, garlic and chili. Fish sauce in it’s pure form them becomes a little softer, subdued and more manageable on the palette. It then becomes the dip what Vietnamese call, Nước chấm or simply, Nước Mắm (depending on tradition).
Varying in so many degrees of sweet-ness, spicy-ness, garlicky-ness and lime-ness (sp?), each household will make claim to having “mom’s best” version. My mother believes that her garlic infused version reigns supreme ( with much support from her nail shop staff), but I feel that my variation is better just because it requires much less post breath mints.
Regardless of ego or family tradition, here are the basic principles of the fish dip sauce. Some traditions use one or all of the following ingredients. You decide how much more you want to explore.
-D.
Print This RecipeBasic Vietnamese Fish Dipping Sauce (Nuoc cham)
Ingredients
1-2 crushed Garlic cloves (or finely minced), but crushed garlic really brings out oils, thus the flavor
1 crushed or minced Thai Chili (customize your spice level)
1/2 squeezed Lime (or about 1 heaping Tablespoon)
1 Tablespoon Sugar
1 teaspoon Rice Vinegar (optional)
1/2 cup Fish Sauce (add more for extra fish sauce depth)
1/2 cup Water
1. Mix all ingredients together well.
Note: As mentioned, these are just the basics, so RELAX !!! If your family uses more sugar, no vinegar or less lime then more power to you! These are just the basics to share with those who do want to make it for the first time. After that, experiment with the individual ingredients to create your own “personal” and “special” nuoc cham sauce.
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{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
JACKPOT!!! Yay! I have been looking for a recipe for this… thank you thank you thank you!
Thanks for the recipe! I just started a food blog (yet another) and my first post and linked this to my com tam suon bi cha post.
Where is the recipe? I can’t find it and I would love to get it!
Thanks!
Jen
Recipe is up now. It did lay on our recipes archive, but that had to be moved. We put it up on the post now. Thanks for the interest! -WORC
My dad did a couple of tours in Vietnam and whenever we can get him to talk about it there, he always brings up his love of “nouc cham”
His birthday is coming up soon and i would love to order him some! Where can i find it???
well.do youlive near any big city,search for a asian market i think you could find some.Uasually they only sell the pure fish sauce,you will have to do the lime ,garlic ,pepper and sugar yourself. you should choose the Thai pepper or goat horn pepper(red one) if you could .when i do the Nuoc Cham to eat with spring roll,i would use a lot of sugar and very little water,to make the sauce become thick.And when i make Nuoc Cham to eat with egg rolls and vermicili i would use quite alot of sugar and water.this is the soulthern style to make Nuoc Cham,we add more sugar than any other area.
I actually have quite a strange question for you regarding Vietnamese food: I’d ask my mom, but I am afraid my Vietnamese isn’t good enough to describe what I am thinking of. Hopefully, you know what I am talking about.
I am thinking of a “banh” that is made of flour, looks sort of greenish, and is steamed covered in banana leaves. Inside, there is minced meat and some sort of mushroom, also minced. The flour in itself is pretty sticky. I cannot seem to remember its name, but remember Little Saigon as a kid, and that my parents would get it for me now and then. Oh, and it was sort of chewy, because of the flour.
Can you help a guy out? I am going nuts thinking of its name.
Marc
i think i could be banh gio or banh u
Hi,
Just wanna point out to Marc about his post.
It depends on the shape of the “ba’nh”.
Banh gio` is more like what you described. It should have a pyramid-like shape.
It has minced mead, black wood ear mushroom. It dough is somewhat transparent. Wrapped in banana leaf.
Banh Nam – is also in banana leaf but it shape is almost flat with a little meat in middle. Its dough is not clear but whitish.
Banh bot loc – has clear dough and a bit chewy. It has shrimp and minced meat. This one is steamed.
I hope that helps.
Diane,
I am a new fan of your blog. Wonderful blog. Thank you.
hey marc im not exactly sure what your talking about. But my mom makes banh loc and it is made up of chopped up meat, shrimp, celantro, black pepper and is first sauted in a pan with oyster sauce and alittle bit of water. she makes the dough and then wraps the mix into that dough where it kinda looks like a fan shape. but there are many ways poeple wrap up the mix. then the banana leaves . and u can dip it with nuoc mam. i hope this helpz