Is there anything that’s more of an umami bomb than fish sauce? A few drops of this magic stuff into a dish can take it from from great to spectacular. It’s an amazing secret ingredient to have in your arsenal.
This is the ultimate guide to fish sauce for anyone who is curious or interested in adding it to your culinary toolkit. In this post, you’ll learn what it is, what brands to buy, how to use it, and most importantly, how to make prepared fish sauce for dipping or dressing at the table.
Nuoc mam vs nuoc cham
Sometimes on restaurant menus you’ll see a reference to nước chấm. Nuoc cham in Vietnamese just means dipping sauce, but what it really means is ready-to-eat/table/prepared, aka fish sauce made into a ready to eat sauce (ie, for dipping) with garlic, lime, and chilies. Very few people would use the raw unadulterated sauce out of the bottle for anything other than cooking.
In my family and in our part of Vietnam, we don’t say nuoc cham. We just say nuoc mam and you’re expected to know which kind is meant based on context. At best, it would be called nước mắm chấm, which means dipping fish sauce. If you are cooking, you use it right out of the bottle, but at the table, it’s always prepared.
Prepared fish sauce is the stuff of dreams, and almost always a jealously guarded family secret. Every Vietnamese family claims their recipe is the best, or that their family makes it the best. Vietnamese kids who have grown up in America and can’t cook as well as their moms joke about always having 2 jars in their fridge. When one goes empty, it’s time to call mom up for another jar.
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