Fish sauce is an amber-colored liquid extracted from the fermentation of fish with sea salt. It is used as a condiment in various cuisines. Fish sauce is a staple ingredient in numerous cultures in Southeast Asia and the coastal regions of East Asia, and features heavily in Thai, Cambodian, Vietnamese, and Philippine cuisine.
In addition to being added to dishes during the cooking process, fish sauce is also used as a base for a dipping condiment that is prepared in many different ways by cooks in each country mentioned for fish, shrimp, pork, and chicken. In parts of southern China, it is used as an ingredient for soups and casseroles. Fish sauce, and its derivatives, impart an umami flavor to food due to their glutamate content.
Read more about Fish Sauce: Types
Famous quotes containing the words fish sauce, fish and/or sauce:
“The progress
Is permanent like the preordained bulk
Of the First National Bank
Like fish sauce, but agreeable.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
“Where no great fish venture
nor small fish glitter and dart,
only the anemones and flower
of the wild sea-thyme
cover the silent walls
of an old sea-city at rest.”
—Hilda Doolittle (1886–1961)
“She leet no morsel from hir lippes falle,
Ne wette hir fyngres in hir sauce depe.
Wel koude she carie a morsel and wel kepe
That no drope ne fille upon hire brest.
In curteisie was set ful muchel hir lest.”
—Geoffrey Chaucer (1340?–1400)