Anything that is not a clear brown liquid! If you see "fish sauce" that is a murky, brownish-grey liquid, that is a different thing altogether and is NOT what you want unless you are making specific dishes that call for it. It's an unfiltered fish sauce with a much more pungent flavour. You can see from the jar on the left, below, what the anchovies and salt look like after they’ve been marinating in salt for a short time.

Beginner cooks and experts alike will find something in this book to learn and to make. The photographs are not only useful but induce drooling. If this book doesn't inspire you, nothing will. It does contain hydrolyzed vegetable protein which is a flavour enhancer, not unlike MSG, so it breaks my "simple ingredient list" rule. But it still tastes good so I make an exception for it.Although I love Vietnamese food, I have to admit to not knowing about the cult status of the famed Red Boat fish sauce, but I'm glad that I do now! This cookbook is also a very effective sales strategy, as I now want to try their fish sauce as well as their salt and peppercorns. More than that, though, the cookbook is also a family history, a treatise on how fish sauce is, and should be, made, and an explanation of the importance of sustainability in production. I really appreciate a cookbook that's inclusive and strives to present a well-rounded worldview of the cuisine it discusses. You can also use fish sauce from different countries interchangeably, i.e. you can use Vietnamese fish sauce in Thai cooking and vice versa. BUT there is a huge range of quality, so your main concern is making sure you choose a good one. Here's how: 1. Choose one with a simple ingredient list.

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. The authors have included a variety of recipes that Asian food lovers will definitely want to make. Plenty of rice and noodle dishes, and plenty of dishes using seafood, poultry, beef, and pork. Included are soups and stir fries, sandwiches and appetizers, as well as basics and sauces.I loved this cookbook as much for the human story as for the recipes. Author Cuong Pham's tale of his escape from war torn Vietnam in 1979 and arriving in the United States nine months later, aged just twenty, is absolutely gripping. He took a degree and then got a job with Steve Jobs at a small computer company called Apple. This section of his story is surely worth an entire book in it's own right as his five siblings and other family members were also escaping from Vietnam to join him at this time, with their mother only able to join them in 1990. 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. While reading, we have to remember different characters and settings that belong to a given story. Even if you enjoy reading a book in one sitting, you have to remember the details throughout the time you take to read the book. Therefore, reading is a workout for your brain that improves memory function. Then, you can start experimenting with non-traditional uses. Try using it in place of soy sauce in Asian cooking, but keep in mind that the flavours are very different, so try substituting just half of the soy sauce in stir fries or marinades see how it goes!

If it's not a clear brown liquid, it's NOT the fish sauce you want. This is mam nem, an unfiltered fish sauce. Storage Tips Some call it a condiment, but fish sauce is more of a seasoning in a sense that we use it primarily to season our food. Its main purpose is to add saltiness; and the secondary purpose, but still very important, is to add umami or savory flavor. 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. This deep amber sauce has a wonderfully punchy fermented fish nose to it. The flavour is savoury and umami with a rich but clean fish flavour. The fish and umami notes have length and there is a rounded flavour. It tasted nice on its own and it would be a great ingredient in cooking. This product seems more assertively fishy than many commercial fish sauces and as such displays considerable character.Note: Sometimes the label will list anchovy extract rather than anchovies. This does not mean they’re using artificial anchovy extracts or any such thing, but some brands use the word "extract" because there aren’t any actual fish in the bottle, only the liquid that had been extracted from the fish. In the same way that oyster sauce contains “oyster extracts” because the oyster bodies aren’t in the bottle. 2. Choose a higher protein content. 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. Good news: there aren't a whole bunch of different types of fish sauce to choose from, unlike soy sauce where dark soy, light soy, sweet soy sauces and more can trip you up. There is mainly just one type (yes, "mainly." See which to avoid below). Anyone who knows the importance of fish sauce in their Vietnamese and Thai dishes, will want a copy of this book. Highly recommended.