Vietnam

Vietnamese Fish Dipping Sauce (Nước mắm pha)

A Vietnamese table sauce balancing concentrated fish sauce with lemon, sugar, garlic, and chile.

2 servings · Easy

Vietnamese Fish Dipping Sauce (Nước mắm pha)

Nước mắm pha is the diluted dipping sauce sitting on nearly every table in Vietnam, built on fish sauce and then adjusted with lime, sugar, garlic and chilli rather than measured from a recipe. Balance matters more than the ingredient list, since too much sugar turns it into a glaze and too much lime buries the salt. Each household settles on its own ratio, which is why no two bowls in the same restaurant taste quite alike.

Ingredients

  • Concentrated fish sauce (nước mắm)0.3 cups
  • Water1.5 cups
  • Lemon juice1 tbsp
  • Granulated sugar1 tbsp
  • Minced garlic1 tsp
  • Sambal oelek chile sauce0.5 tsp

Directions

  1. 1

    Mix all ingredients together until the sugar dissolves.

  2. 2

    If desired, transfer the sauce to a small saucepan and bring it to a full rolling boil, then remove it from the heat carefully.

  3. 3

    Let the sauce cool, then cover and refrigerate it.

Source: Wikibooks Cookbook (English) · CC BY-SA 4.0; English normalized and Chinese translation added by WorldBite.