Weeknight
Nuoc cham
Vietnam's hot, tangy table sauce — fish sauce, lime, sugar, garlic and chilli, pounded not blended.
You have to add this to your spicy arsenal. No Vietnamese meal — no South East Asian meal, really — should be served without it. Use a mortar and pestle; an electric blender will not give you the correct consistency. It keeps a week in the fridge. Mine never lasts that long.
Method
- 01
Pound the garlic, chillies and sugar in a mortar and pestle until you have a coarse, wet paste — the sugar does the grinding work for you.
- 02
Work in the lime juice until the sugar dissolves.
- 03
Stir in the fish sauce and then the warm water.
- 04
Taste and adjust: more water if it is too fierce, more lime if it is flat, more sugar if it bites.
- 05
Add the carrot if you like it, and let it sit 10 minutes before serving.
- 06
Store in a jar in the fridge for up to a week.
Keep cooking
