Main Ingredients:

See below ingredients and instructions of the recipe

Cooking Preparation of the Recipe:

-Nuoc Cham (Vietnamese
-Chili Sauce for dipping)

2 Dried red chilies 2 Cloves garlic 1/2 t Sugar 2 T Fish sauce 1 T
Vinegar 1 T Lemon juice

Mince chilies and garlic finely and place in a mortar. Mash with
the heel of a cleaver or pestle. Add sugar and stir until it
dissolves. Add fish sauce, vinegar and lemon juice, stirring between
each addition. This makes enough for 2-4 people. I almost always
double the recipe just to make sure there's enough. I've kept it for
long periods of time but unless you freeze it, it's past it's prime
after a few days.

This is a basic chili sauce used for a dip for chicken or
whatever. Variations of this are found in Cambodia, Thailand and
other Southeast Asian countries. You can fiddle with it endlessly.
This is a good starting point. The proportions shown here produce
what I consider a mildly warm dip. I generally use two to six times
as many chilies, depending on their strength and how hot I want it.

Variations: use green serrano chilies instead of dried red ones,
lime juice instead of the lemon juice or palm sugar instead of
granulated. If you make it in a food processor, don't over process.
It should have small chunks of each ingredient rather than being a
homogeneous liquid.

The taste is sour and hot, very puckery. It's great with poached
or steamed chicken, duck or game hens. Much better with basically
bland dishes rather than something like curry which has it's own
blend of spices. Good with Chinese white-cut chicken or Steamed
Ginger Chicken with Black Bean sauce. It's truly addictive and I
often serve it with meals that are not Oriental in origin. Should be
good with a firm-fleshed white fish or boiled shrimp or crab.

Fish sauce is a liquid made with anchovies and salt. It's not really
fishy tasting. Look for it in the oriental section of supermarkets or
at markets catering to Asian clientele. Tiparos is a good brand made
in the Philippines. I prefer Thai or Vietnamese fish sauce, but
they'll probably be harder to find.

Another trick is to combine large quantities of the liquid
ingredients and store them in the fridge. Then, when you want some
Nuoc Cham, just chop up the chilies and garlic, pound them with the
sugar and add them to the liquid. Converted by MMCONV vers. 1.40

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