Tangy-Sweet Shrimp Sauce

Name: Tangy-Sweet Shrimp Sauce
Yield: makes about 1 cup
Ingredients: 6 tablespoons fresh lime juice (3 limes); 1 tablespoon unseasoned Japanese rice vinegar (optional); 1 tablespoon fine shrimp sauce; 3 tablespoons fish sauce; 2 1/2 tablespoons sugar; 1/4 cup water; 2 or 3 Thai or serrano chiles, thinly sliced (optional)

December 14, 2011

This sauce is intensely flavored by lots of lime juice, which rounds out the edges of the shrimp sauce (mam tom), a salty, pungent fermented staple of the Viet kitchen. The fish sauce lends savoriness, the chiles add heat, and the sugar softens everything. Although the rice vinegar is optional, it helps smooth out all the flavors. This sauce is the traditional condiment with turmeric catfish with rice noodles (page 226).

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