Vietnamese Dipping Sauce: Nuoc Cham or Nước Chấm

Vietnamese is part of the Austroasiatic language family, which includes several other languages, the largest of which are Khmer, the national language of Cambodia, and Mon, which is one of the languages of Myanmar (formerly known as Burma). Vietnamese has several diacritic marks, commonly called "accent markings" by some, and Vietnamese was influenced beginning in the late 1700s by Portuguese, later by French and by Engish (largely via Americans) and by Chinese.

This is one of those sauces with a large variety of recipes, as many people simply make it at home, although I believe I've heard there are commercial brands of this dipping sauce. Please don't be afraid of fish sauce. Yes, it has both a strong odor and a strong salty and fishy taste, but when mixed with other ingredients, it provides a special savory flavor. A small amount is a common addition to a number of Southeast Asian recipes, but in the case of this sauce, it has a larger representation, especially given the small of amount of overall ingredients, but I absolutely love this sauce; and remember, this is a "dipping sauce," not a beverage. Myself, I haven't had a drink of it for at least 15 or 20 minutes. hahaha  Also, I tend to use one small hot chili pepper and half of a small milder, but still with some heat, red chili pepper. If you don't like much heat, I'd suggest just using a pinch of red pepper flakes or cayenne pepper instead of the fresh hot chilies. If you're a busy person, making this sauce could be a tough one, because it will take all of about 4 or 5 minutes to make it ... wow, so time consuming. hahaha! 

 

You can vary the amount of some ingredients to fine tune the sauce to your own taste preference. Hm, if this is a "dipping sauce," maybe old Randy has another recipe? Stay tuned! (And it's "ol' Randy!")

 

Ingredients:

 

4 tablespoons water

1 tablespoon sugar (more to taste, if needed)

1 tablespoon fresh lime juice 

1 or 2 small hot red chili peppers, minced

1 large clove of garlic, minced

1 teaspoon rice vinegar

1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon fish sauce 

Dissolve the sugar in 2 tablespoons of warm, not hot, water, then add the other 2 tablespoons of water, the lime juice, the rice vinegar and the fish sauce. Mix well, then add the chili pepper and garlic and mix well again. Taste the sauce to see if it needs a little more sugar, or perhaps some more lime juice. 

 

WORD HISTORY:

Example/Sample-These words are closely linked and they are closely related to "exempt," a Latin-derived word borrowed by English via French (with lots of influence from Latin itself). The first part of "example" goes back to Indo European "eghs/ekhs," which had the notion, "out from, away from," and this gave Latin "ex," with the same basic meanings. The main body of the the word is from Indo European "em," which meant, "to take," and this gave Latin the verb "emere," initially meaning "to take," but with added meanings, "to obtain, to acquire;" thus also, "to buy." Together the parts gave Latin the verb "eximere," meaning, "to take away from;" thus, "to remove." This produced the Latin noun "exemplum," meaning, "a pattern or model (taken from an item or event);" thus, "a sample (taken from a product)," but also, "a warning or lesson;" as taken from an event or a person; as in, "Let that man's prison sentence be a warning (or example) to you." The Latin form was rendered as "essemple/essample," and English borrowed the word in the 1300s with seemingly variable spellings (not uncommon in those tymes .. ah, I mean times), but centered around "essample." By the second half of the 1400s, under the influence of Latin, the spelling added "ex" for the first part of the word (French did the same, as there was something of a revival of Latin influence and, thus, spellings.) Old French "essemple/essample"  produced the shortened form "saumple" in the French that developed in England over time and this was borrowed by English in the 1300s, with the modern spelling following in the 1400s (?). The commercial idea of "a small portion of a product used to promote the sale of a product" seems to be from the first half of the 1400s, and the use of the term for medical and scientific purposes is from the second half of the 1800s. The verb use of the word developed in the mid 1700s meaning, "to take small parts of things, often food, to get the notion of the whole objects;" as in, "I want to sample all 10 flavors of ice cream to see which one I like best."