The Sauce That Can Go With Any Seafood

5.17.10

South East Asian Style

If you have only tried warm butter sauce or cocktail sauce for your seafood, you've gotta try this special sauce. It's...different...but savory and rich in flavor. Plus, it's easy to make!

The sauce is popular in South East Asian cuisine. If you like garlicky, sour, herbaly (is it a word!?), and possibly spicy flavors, you should try it. When you see the ingredients, you might be able to guess what it's going to taste like.

Seafood is more likely to taste bland and therefore we need a sour twist to cut it. One of my friends had this sauce with raw oysters minus the lemon juice or sherry vinegar, and topped it with fried shallots. It was heaven. It's actually the way Thai people eat raw oysters too except they add a local herb called Acacia pennata.

My mom has also used it as a dipping sauce with fried vegetables and tofu. I have used this sauce with several recipes. The spiciness can be adjusted to your preference.

Seafood Sauce-Asian Style

Yield: about 1/2 cup

Ingredients:

3 tablespoons fish sauce
4 tablespoons sugar
3 limes, juice
4 big garlic cloves
1-1 1/2 tablespoons chopped ginger
1 tablespoon chopped cilantro
4 Thai Chilies (aka Bird's eye Chili)--Please adjust it to your preference

Directions:

• Add garlic, chili, ginger, and cilantro into a food processor. Pulse about 5 times until it's coarsely chopped.
• Add sugar, pulse 5 times until all mixed together
• Add fish sauce and lime juice, pulse 3 times. Sugar should be dissolved into the mixture.
• Taste to correction and adjust it to your preference.

I'd like to take a moment to pray for the Thai folks in Bangkok to have a sound and safe lives, and are hoping the situation will be greatly improved soon.

The Sauce That Can Go With Any Seafood