Vietnamese Dipping Sauce, Nouc Cham

You better master how to make this sauce well if you are a keen fan of Vietnamese food and plan to start cooking Vietnamese food at home. It's use for almost everything, from being a dressing for cold noodle dishes to just dipping sauce for everything you can think of. There are no rocket science here, you just have to get the balance right so that the end result tastes sweet, salty, hot and sour. I adapted the recipe from Mai Pham's The Pleasures Of A Vietnamese Table.

you'll need;

6 bird chilies, sliced

2 cloves of garlic, sliced

6 tbs of sugar

10 tbs of fish sauce

3 tbs of lime juice

1 1/3  cups of warm water

shredded carrot

place sugar, sliced chilies and garlic in a mortal....

pound everything to a pulp and place it in a bowl...

add water and fish sauce

then lime juice....

shredded carrot...

mix well and it's ready to be used.