Fish sauce is an essential ingredient in my pantry. It has a nice salty-sweet flavor to it, and you use it very sparingly, like Anchovy paste. A little goes a long way! There are several brands of fish sauce, the best one I have found so far is called “Three Crabs”. Good fish sauce should be the color of brewed tea. Anything darker (like the color of soy sauce) is a lower quality brand. If you think that “fish sauce” sounds like a weird ingredient, guess what? If you enjoy Thai and Vietnamese dishes…most of them call for fish sauce in the ingredients! After opening, you can store fish sauce in your pantry or refrigerator.
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I always have fish sauce. Several of my family and friends claim they don’t like the taste or smell but when I put it in food, they eat it up. It’s an ingredient that I never can do without…
It’s a pungent smell, but once you COOK with the fish sauce, the pungency disappears. Use it right and you can’t even detect the fish sauce, but it’s the magical, secret ingredient in my cooking.
Fish Sauce really does smell when added to something on the stove, but once you get past that….mmmmm…….It’s odd how the odor dissipates quickly.
PS: I am going out for Thai for lunch today!
Just back from Laos where it was pretty much in every dish in some form or another. Great versatile ingredient!
I hate fish, fishy smells, etc but I have no problem at all using fish sauce. I made a thai style skirt steak marinade the other day with fish sauce, oyster sauce, lime juice, fresh basil, and red chilies.
I just need to up the quality of mine after reading your info here. The stuff I’m using right now is “Thai Kitchen” and yeah….it’s a bit dark like soy sauce:(
I’m learning to love fish sauce. I’ve always just used a tiny bit in whatever I’m cooking, but mom swears that it’s best in fried rice, and now when I make it, I use that instead of soy or oyster sauce. This house isn’t a fan of the smell either, and yea the odor does dissipate after cooking. I just have to make dinner before anyone is home or they are out of the house while the stuff is being used.
oh this is too much! I was transporting a bottle of fish sauce home yesterday in my purse…and it leaked. My whole bag and most of the contents now smell of this stuff!! EEEW!
I just found it amusing to come to my blog list and see one titled ‘Fish Sauce’.
I love cooking Thai food. And yes, fish sauce is the staple ingredient in my pantry. Can’t live without it!
I love fish sauce because it tastes good and to me, it smells good! Nothing like the smell of an Asian kitchen