It is called “nam pla” in Thailand, “nuoc mam” in Vietnam, “teuk trei” in Cambodia, “budu” in Malaysia, “nam pa” in Laos, “patis” in the Philippines, “ngan bya yay” in Burma, “aekjeot” in Korea, and “yulu” in China, and “gyosho” or “uoshoyu” in Japan. Red Boat Fish Sauce is a staple in Southeast Asian cuisine and has been used for centuries. It is made from fermented fish and has a salty, savory flavor. It is often used as a condiment or added to dishes to enhance the flavor. Finally, the price tag can tell you something. You can use price as a general indication of quality because the most flavourful fish sauce actually takes more fish to make, and should cost you more. Fish sauce won't "spoil" however, because there's so much salt in there, no bacteria can grow; it just won't taste good if it's "old".

I wanted to ask you both about your respective relationships to this particular work. Tien, how is this experience different from the other two cookbooks that you’ve worked on? Another indicator of quality is protein content. As I explained in How is Fish Sauce Made above, lower quality fish sauce has more water added, and this naturally dilutes the concentration of fish protein. You can buy vegan fish sauce, but you have to be quite selective because there are some reeeealy bad ones out there. In the video I showed a bottle that is awful, and the ingredient list contains water, salt, sugar, MSG, caramel, "flavor" (whatever that is), and sodium benzoate which is the preservative. It's just a salty solution with artificial flavor added.

Nước mắm nhĩ Red Boat 40°N, 500ml

Yes, it smells fishy, but the magic of fish sauce is that once it's added to food, the fishiness disappears and you're left with that salty savory punch that can elevate any dish. Substitutes Use this fish sauce “neat” over roasted salmon, halibut or scallops, toss with sautéed greens and lemon or blend with butter and smear over a freshly seared steak or lamb chops. It’s particularly good with lime, Red Kampot Pepper and palm sugar as a dipping sauce or salad dressing. With a variety of fish sauces widely available, there is no need for substitutions. However, if you’re in the middle of making a recipe and discover you’re out of fish sauce, here are a few substitutions you can use depending on what dish you’re making (although you won’t get as much of an umami flavor as you would the real thing): DT: Right, nor a two-string guitar. We didn’t want to trap Vietnamese food into “essentials,” which is a word I kind of hate. Like, here’s a glimpse into a cuisine — which is what we wanted to achieve — rather than caging the cuisine in a terrarium where it doesn’t go anywhere. And we wanted to present the ingredient on its own terms. We don’t have a chapter about fish sauce called “Sorry It’s Stinky.”

DT: We keep trying to think of the feminine version of the word “avuncular” — I always forget it because it’s a mouthful — but I wanted to come from an avuncular place without over-explaining what the dish actually is. You know, if you didn’t know how to make com tam, we would teach you without being like, “Now let’s go to an ancient country and I’ll put on my conical hat …” When you were both working on this book, what audience did you have in mind? Who did you most want to reach? I wasn’t frustrated with the quality of fish sauce here before I tried Red Boat, but I grew up with my grandparents and heard their kvetching about it. I left Vietnam when I was 5, and I remember certain things but nothing about fish sauce. But for people in my parents’ and grandparents’ generation, they had to hustle because the war changed everything. One day you could have a steady job and the next day you don’t. My grandpa had a bunch of different careers, one of which involved distribution of fish sauce. So in America they would talk about how the fish sauce wasn’t first press even if the label said otherwise, either because the ingredient list revealed the lie or mostly because it just didn’t taste like first-press fish sauce. They had a favorite brand when I was growing up here because it was the only one available, but it was a very — how does that song go? — “If you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you’re with” kind of thing.

Nite Yun, Chef at Nyum Bai in Oakland, CA

If you want to splurge a bit, RED BOAT a premium brand that is the most well known for producing "extra virgin fish sauce." It is made on the island of Phu Quoc in Vietnam, known for making good fish sauce. Basically, fish sauce is the liquid that results from the fermentation of small fish (most commonly anchovies) and salt. The process is rather simple: put a bunch of anchovies and salt together in a big tank and let it do its natural thing. We used the fish sauce in our recipes, we sold bottles of it in our merch section, and someone was like, “Are you sponsored by Red Boat now?” I’m like, no, I’m just evangelical about it. The transparency of the company was also important because international fisheries are notoriously rife with labor violations and human rights violations. It was great to know about a product that didn’t perpetuate that chain of behavior. MEGACHEF. Megachef fish sauce has recently surged in popularity in Thailand, branding itself as more premium, but still affordable enough for everyday use. It has a great flavour and tastes more rich and flavourful than Squid. Most brands will also add a little bit of sugar to help round off the sharpness of the salt for a more balanced flavour. The presence of sugar, in my opinion, is not a bad thing as it's such a small amount and will only help its flavour. In lower quality fish sauces, other additives such as MSG, flavor, and color might also be added. How to Choose a Good Fish Sauce

At the most basic, a good fish has simple ingredients: fish, water and salt. Sometimes, sugar, molasses, or caramel are added for color and sweetness. You want to find a fish sauce that has been fermented long enough to develop deep flavors and aromas. A simple ingredient list is best, but I sometimes like the ones with a bit of added sweetener. You might notice that some brands contain added protein. For example, Three Crabs fish sauce contains 2 grams of protein but also has “hydrolyzed wheat protein” on its ingredient list. (Hydrolyzed wheat protein is a flavor enhancer, similar to MSG.) I do not know whether the amount added makes any difference to the total amount of protein per serving (my guess is that it doesn’t) but it is something to mention. If you're an occasional user, keep opened fish sauce in the fridge. If the fridge is not an option for some reason, at the very least store it in a cool, dark place. This is because over time, the flavour does deteriorate and becomes more pungent, and the color will be visibly darken. Keeping it cold, in the dark, and tightly sealed will slow this process down significantly. Golden Boy (or as I call it, the creepy baby brand). If this is the only one you have, fine, but it isn't the best quality despite a relatively simple ingredient list. I felt like Red Boat’s entry into the market would inspire a generation of Vietnamese Americans — and Asian Americans — to think about the culinary legacies that they have. You know, soy sauce shouldn’t be an anonymous product either. But the taste of Red Boat was so excellent that I changed the recipes in my restaurant immediately. Which is insane, because here I am changing a 20-gallon recipe for pho, but I was so committed it wasn’t even a question. It was like, I’ve got to stay up late and do this.Price is just a general rule of thumb though, and should not be used as the only indicator (I've seen some ridiculous pricing on fancy-looking fish sauce with a bunch of additives!). But once you've already considered the two points above, price can be used as a tiebreaker. Red Boat Fish Sauce is a Thai sauce made from only two ingredients: fresh caught wild fish and salt. A perfect balance of sweetness and saltiness with a touch of umami, Red Boat is a versatile ingredient that can be used in a variety of dishes to enhance the flavor. It can be used in soups, stir-fries, sauces, and marinades, or even as a finishing touch to a dish. Megachef is fermented for 2 years, which I believe is longer than many others. The saltiness feels a little less jarring than Squid, so this is a good choice if you want to use it as a tableside condiment.

Most Thai people keep fish sauce out at room temperature right by the stove because we use it for everything and it needs to be at arm's reach. But we also go through it fast. SQUID. Squid is a household name of fish sauce in Thailand, and indeed it is the one my family uses. It isn't "premium," but it's perfect for everyday use and is affordable and widely available. I thought first-press fish sauce was a unicorn — that it wasn’t like it was extinct but like it didn’t even exist. When I tasted Red Boat for the first time, it finally made so much sense why my grandparents had kept talking about it. But here’s why I really got so excited: Not only was the product amazing but here was a Vietnamese American giving the artisanal treatment to something that largely before had been considered a commodity product. There was previously no transparency in the production of fish sauce, no sense of where it came from or who was making it.It is a little saltier than most, with 1670 mg of sodium per tablespoon, so if you're watching your salt intake, you may want to go with another brand. But because of this, it is the brand that I now use for my recipe testing to ensure that if you follow my recipe using a different brand of fish sauce, you're not going to end up with something that's is too salty; which is something you cannot fix.