When In Doubt, Add Fish Sauce

Carter was working on her college essay today. That got her in the mood for food like she ate in Taiwan, where she went to school when she was thirteen. She asked me if I would make her hibachi vegetables for dinner which I think of as a totally American thing, but what the hell, she was asking for vegetables. While she was at basketball practice I cooked up some onions, zucchini, yellow squash and mushrooms. At the end I added minced garlic, ginger and soy sauce, per Carter’s request.
She walked in the door and tasted the mixture and declared it not Asian enough. No surprise. Does it need vinegar, she asked? I reached into my magic cabinet of flavors and pulled out the fish sauce bottle. One douse of the smelly liquid and voila, instant Asian. Carter was happy and therefore so was I.
I first learned about fish sauce from a woman in Bethesda, MD who I used to cater for. She kept a bottle of it under her sink and her husband used it in some foul smelling cocktail he would make. She told me that he had become addicted to it when he was in the war in Vietnam. She said it smelled too bad to keep in her regular pantry.
I quickly came to disagree with her that it should be kept with other food stuffs, and not Ajax and dish soap. Even though I was her caterer and came to her house with most of the food I would be serving fully prepared, she would still want to taste it all before I served it. Sure enough she would often suggest we add a douse of fish sauce to all kind of food and sure enough, she was right. It added just a hint of something exotic.
If you don’t know about fish sauce, don’t buy it at the regular grocery store where they charge a ridiculous amount of money for it. Instead go the an Asian market and buy any old brand. I get mine t the big Asian superstore, Li Ming and I think I pay something like $1.29 for a half litter. Don’t keep it with the poisons in your house. On its own it might smell like it can kill a rat, but added to food it is magic. It is salty and tangy at the same time. Please don’t take. Big sniff of it and expect to know what it tastes like. Somehow the awful smell turns into a yummy taste.