I think there’s an important distinction to be made between fish sauces: filtered (light) and unfiltered. For heavier curries and such, one typically uses the stronger, ‘rank’, fermented, unfiltered fish sauce, a sauce that resembles a gray paste. However, what you were probably served was a filtered fish sauce that is mostly salt water with a hint of fish undertones. Around here, the predominant premium brand of filtered fish sauce is the Three Crabs Brand.
I’ve not read the Salt book yet, but the book on Cod, from the same author was amazing. Salt is now on my list of books to download to my mp3 player.
If by “pungent”, you mean that it smells like a mackerel’s asshole, then yea. I mean, I can bullshit him and say it smells like twinklebell’s pussy, but when you are smelling the effluent of rotting and fermenting fish assholes, it’s pretty much all a matter of degrees of how much it smells like a mackerel’s rotting asshole.
Don’t get me wrong, I love Fish sauce, and I’ve had the Philipino variety and some very good “light” Thai and Vietnamese varieties and even they don’t use it straight from the bottle much, it is most often an ingredient to food or condimented.
I suppose, but there’s just certain brands that I find difficult to choke down–they have a bit of an “ammonia” flavor/scent or something to them. Others, I can do shots of and love the smell of (like Squid brand.) I usually use about 1/3 cup of fish sauce per pound of chicken in my stir-fried basil chicken and once I bought a Filipino patis and I had to really try hard to finish that dish. There was another smell in there–one that reminded me of a fermented Swedish “delicacy” called surstromming–that wasn’t present in the Thai brands I’ve had. Squid-brand or Three Crabs or Thai Kitchen doesn’t smell or taste like “mackerel assholes” to me. Whatever Filipino stuff I bought (and I think it’s Rufina), sure does. Squid is made from anchovies, so that could possibly be part of it. I think Rufina is made from a different mix of fish.
Wow…ok, whatever I had really didn’t taste like fish at all, which is why I was surprised it was fish oil <or sauce or whatever>. Very salty, yes, but it had…layers! And looked so clear, not all brown and thick the way I always imagined ‘fish sauce’ would be. I can easily imagine it was fish sauce, yes, with fish, but…wow. So good.
I never even put it on anything. I was just tasting it plain, to explore what it was, and kept on doing it.
And thank you for the varied recommendations and info; I know now that if the first fish sauce I try isn’t to my taste, to keep trying, since it seems there are a variety.
p.s. I did in fact pour some onto the chopped cucumber salad, toward the end. VERY GOOD!! <adds cukes and sauce to shopping list>
As has been mentioned, your version was prepared with lime and hot peppers, but the straight stuff–at least the anchovies-and-salt ones I like–aren’t particularly “fishy,” either, at least not to me. The stuff is awesome–I far prefer it to soy sauce for salting up stir fries. And don’t stop just there–use fish sauce wherever you want that little umami kick. I even sometimes put a little bit in tomato pasta sauce (using them in the same way I would anchovies).