About this recipe
The dipping sauce that appears beside a large share of the dishes in this chapter. It is worth being precise: nước mắm is fish sauce, the fermented seasoning liquid; nước chấm is what you make from it by diluting it with water and balancing it with sugar, lime, garlic and chilli. They are not interchangeable, and pouring neat fish sauce where a recipe calls for nước chấm will overwhelm the dish.
Recipe facts
- Yield
- About 1.5 cups (360 ml)
- Prep
- 10 minutes
- Cook
- None
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Spice
- Adjustable
Allergens Contains fish (fish sauce). Gluten-free if the fish sauce is gluten-free. Dairy-free. Not vegetarian.
Development draft. This is an untested development recipe from the cookbook project. It has not been kitchen-tested, and the quantities and timings are the author’s working draft rather than a verified result.
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup (120 ml) warm water
- 3 tbsp (38 g) granulated sugar
- 1/4 cup (60 ml) fish sauce
- 3 tbsp (45 ml) fresh lime juice, from about 2 limes
- 3 cloves garlic, finely minced
- 1–3 fresh red chillies, finely sliced or pounded
- 1 tbsp (10 g) finely shredded carrot, for appearance (optional)
Equipment
- Small bowl
- Whisk or spoon
- Mortar and pestle (optional)
Method
- Stir the sugar into the warm water until fully dissolved.
- Stir in the fish sauce, then the lime juice.
- Taste. The sauce should be light enough to drink — sour first, then sweet, then salty, with none of the three dominating.
- Adjust: more water if it is too intense, more lime if it is flat, a little more sugar if it is harsh.
- Stir in the garlic and chilli last so they float rather than sink, and add the shredded carrot if using.
- Rest 10 minutes before serving to let the flavours settle.
Uses from this chapter
- (This dish is itself the chapter's core condiment) (Foundations — Condiments C06) — Cross-referenced from most recipes in this chapter
The Complete Edition
Nước Chấm (Dipping Sauce) sits in the Vietnam chapter
The book carries this recipe in full alongside the rest of the Vietnam chapter, the pastes and dips it is built on, and the twenty-seven pantry studies that open the collection.
In review with Amazon KDP
Both editions have been submitted to Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing and are currently in review. Submitted prices are $9.99 for the kindle edition and $49.99 for the paperback. Neither is on sale yet, and prices are as submitted rather than final.