Vietnamese Dipping Sauces

For Vietnamese people, it would be terrible to serve boiled duck with a mixture of salt pepper, lemon and chilli, or to serve boiled chicken with a mixture of fish sauce, garlic, and lemon. For Vietnamese gourmets, it should be the other way round. Similarly, barbecued veal should usually be dipped into a blend of thick soy sauce, sugar and ginger instead of fish sauce.

 

Thus, every dish of the Vietnamese people is served with a specific dipping sauce, which seems to be a culinary mistake to replace with something different.

 

Among Vietnamese dipping sauces, fish sauce is of the top rank. This is why a Western man who entirely falls into line with the Vietnamese way of life is often called “Mr Westerner of fish sauce (Ong Tay Nuoc Mam).”

 

It is common knowledge that soy sauce is the most popular dipping sauce of the Chinese people. Due to its geographical features, many areas in China are not abundant in seafood and sunlight, indispensable elements in making fish sauce.

 

However, unlike its neighbour China, Viet Nam has a long coastline of more than 3,000 km, with sunlight all year round. Viet Nam, therefore, has an abundant source of seafood to make a large amount of fish sauce and other sauces to provide enough both for millions of Vietnamese people and for export. In addition to having plentiful supplies of fish, it has the sunlight that also plays an important role in making fish sauce. Only the intense heat from the sun of this tropical country is able to change tons of fish in big jars. The fish gradually dissolve to create a viscid brown sauce like honey with a strong smell that people from temperate zones sometimes find unpleasant at first. However, many Westerners become addicted to the fish sauce when they have stayed in Viet Nam for a long time and become familiar with its smell.

 

The residents in Hue, the old capital of Viet Nam, are known as gastronomes and good cooks. Hue women often evaluate the ability of a cook through the way she prepares the dipping sauce. “Bad dipping sauce is the mark of a poor cook.” is a familiar remark of the Hue residents. That is true because fish sauce is considered the “spirit” of Vietnamese food. And Vietnamese people have brought that “spirit” with them all over the world. Today, fish sauce has started to become familiar to people far and wide. The word Nuoc Mam is listed as a common noun in a famous French Larousse dictionary.

 

In summer, the most popular dish of the Vietnamese people is “boiled water morning glory with fish sauce.” However, In order to have, a good bowl of dipping sauce, people have to mix fish sauce with lemon juice or vinegar, some slices of garlic and fresh chilli.

 

Boiled cabbage, kohlrabi and shoots of field cabbage are more delicious when they are served with a blend of fish sauce and boiled egg. This kind of thick and yellow dipping sauce reduces the bitterness of field cabbage’s shoots. Fried fish is often accompanied by fish sauce mixed with vinegar or lemon juice, garlic and ginger.

 

Noodles with grilled meat (Bun Cha), a speciality of Ha Noi, requires a much more sophisticated concoction of dipping sauce. For this, fish sauce is diluted with boiled water, and vinegar, plus an addition of sugar, pepper, garlic and chilli so that it tastes salty, sour, sweet and hot.

 

The ways of concocting dipping sauces in each of Viet Nam’s three regions are different. Northerners often dilute the fish sauce with boiled water, vinegar or lemon juice and add some sugar. Gastronomic cooks use the broth to mix with fish sauce so that it is sweeter and more delicious. Southerners use boiled coconut milk to mix with fish sauce, lemon juice and sugar.

 

Unlike Northerners and Southerners, people in Central Viet Nam like the salty taste of the pure fish sauce. Thus, they only add some lemon, sugar and chilli without diluting the fish sauce. For people in Central Viet Nam, a bowl of good dipping sauce has to be so salty and hot that the eaters’ eyes water.

 

In Phan Thiet, there is a special dipping sauce, which is a mixture of fish sauce, boiled pineapple juice and sugar. f his kind of dipping sauce is both sweet and fragrant.

 

Fresh chilli is an integral spice in the dipping sauce of the Vietnamese people, especially in the South and the Center. However, the way in which chilli is added to dipping sauces in each of the three regions is different. Northerners often slice chilli and put them into bowls Of dipping sauce. People in the South and Center pound chilli before they pour fish sauce into it so that it tastes hotter and looks more attractive with a red colour.

 

In addition to the fish sauce, soy sauce and shrimp paste are also popular dipping sauces. Soy sauce is made from soybean and glutinous rice. These ingredients are dried out, pounded and fermented, and then mixed with bittern. This dipping sauce is popular among Buddhists and vegetarians.

 

Shrimp paste is the most suitable dipping sauce to accompany dog meat, the insides of a pig, fried tofu and grilled fish. Shrimp paste is mixed with lemon juice, vinegar, and then beaten up in order to reduce its salty taste and strong smell. Foreigners and even some Vietnamese people tend to fear shrimp paste because of its strong smell, but those who grow accustomed to this dipping sauce will become addicted.

 

For gourmets, boiled pork must be served with the sour shrimp paste of Hué and the fish sauce of Binh Dinh, together with thin slices of green banana, sour star fruit and some kinds of herb.

 

Shrimp paste is made from sea shrimp that is mixed with salt. Fish sauce is made from sea fish, such as anchovy, scad and tuna. The sour shrimp paste of Hué is made from the brackish shrimp from Tam Giang Lagoon.

 

However, the dipping sauce is not always sophisticated. Sometimes, it is only some salt mixed with pepper, lemon juice, and chilli, when you eat boiled chicken, or it is the mixture of sesame and salt when you eat rice ball.

 

The residents in Hue sophisticatedly make 22 kinds of salt, such as salt with meat, salt with fish, and salt with cereal and with fruit which tastes hot, salty, sweet, bitter and sour.