Fish sauce is the basis of Asian cuisine

Invented in China in the first millennium BC, fish sauce was also popular in ancient Rome and Greece. In addition to soy sauce, it is he who is the main spice for Asian cuisine. The sauce has a salty, unique and irreplaceable taste, derived from fermented salted fish, and perfectly enhances the taste of curry. The color of the sauce is rich red-transparent or golden brown. Some types of fish sauce are prepared with raw shallow fish. Usually it is used instead of salt as a spicy seasoning to fried dishes or as a marinade for meat or fish. Traditional fish sauce is known in Vietnam as nuoc nam, in the Philippines - patis, in Thailand - nam pla in Thailand and in Japan - shottsuru. In some other regions it is also called fish gravy or fish gravy.

It should be noted that the fish sauce has a very characteristic pungent flavor, which softens during cooking. Asian fish sauce differs from each other. For example, fish sauce Vietnamese sweet, because during the fermentation of fish it adds sugar, and the Filipino sauce, which is known as Bagoong Monamon, has a sour taste.

Today, fish sauce is produced in villages and fishing villages. For its preparation, the fish is placed in barrels, sprinkled with salt and allowed to ferment. After this, the liquid that forms in the barrels is removed through the tap located at the bottom of the can. When the meat of the fish finishes fermentation, it is filtered, placed in a clean container and exposed to the sun. The more such a product will be under direct sunlight, the better the sauce will be, with a more intense flavor - so gets the first grade of fish sauce. The second and third grades are made by coating the remnants of fish with salt water again and left for two to three months to continue fermentation and then bottled. Finally, the remains of the fish are cooked in salt water, and the lowest grade of fish sauce is obtained, in which the taste is significantly reduced. According to the consistency, some sauces are quite diverse - some can be liquid, while others are more like purees.

A good fish sauce, the recipe of which is simple enough, is prepared from a mixture of fish and salt, which wandered for from 1 year to 18 months. Usually, anchovies are used, although some types of sauce can be prepared from other types of fish, such as mackerel, tuna, shrimp and even squid. There are many recipes for its preparation, but in the most common there are always such ingredients as anchovies, salt and water. Sugar can be added, but it is not necessary. In Vietnamese stores, you can also purchase vegetarian fish sauce.

For those who care about personal sodium consumption, using sauce can be some dilemma. But do not worry. If the sodium content in the fish sauce seems outrageous, then do not forget that this amount is evenly distributed throughout the product that you are cooking. Add only a portion of the fish sauce provided in the recipe, and replace the remaining batch with sea salt - it contains a smaller portion of sodium than in common table salt.

To a dish, when cooking fish sauce is used, did not have an unpleasant smell, you need to add a few drops of lime juice. In most Thai recipes, the sauce comes in combination with lemon and other spicy ingredients. Fish sauce, as a rule, is not served separately as a basic sauce through its intense odor. Instead, it is most often used in those dishes that were originally spiced with other spices.

It takes time to prepare a natural fish sauce, so it is made in large-scale production. Although you can cook something similar at home. To do this, you need to clean the salmon, remove the bones and cut into small pieces. Peel the shrimp and cut into 2-3 parts. Tresku also cut into small pieces, garlic squeezed through garlic. Add olive oil and white wine to the fish. Cook until the wine evaporates. Add tomatoes, salt and pepper. The sauce should be kept on low heat for another 30 minutes, at the end add chopped parsley.