Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Adventures in Fish Sauce

I'm sure everyone has been caught in fascination by the title of this post. What is fish sauce, you ask? Are you sure you want to know? Ok, here it goes. Fish sauce is a condiment used regularly in Vietnamese food made of fermented -- yes, fermented -- anchovies. Bleh! But aside from my feelings about anchovies, fermented or otherwise, I really enjoy Vietnamese food.
Last Saturday night, Andrew and I had decided that it was time for a date night. The only problem is that we are truly starving students, so money for said date is a little tight. We decided on an activity that we both enjoy. We pick a food that sounds good, and make it for dinner. This week's food of choice was spring rolls.

For those of you who haven't tried spring rolls, shame on you. No, seriously, they're the healthy cousin of egg rolls. Shrimp, vegetables and herbs rolled together in rice paper, and if you're lucky, dipped in peanut sauce.

So first, we went shopping at our local Vietnamese market, the ABC supermarket, where we bought basil, mint, Vietnamese herb (yes, that's how the third one was labeled), cucumbers, shrimp, fish sauce, and a bunch of other things that we needed to make spring rolls. We then went to the Richardson family dwelling in Fountain Valley and started putting things together. Amazingly, everything turned out quite well. I don't think I actually followed any recipe, since I am terrified of fish sauce. I cut the amount of fish sauce in the peanut sauce from half a cup to about 2 tablespoons. But it turned out really well, and it was a super fun date.

Now to the adventurous part. On Monday, I walked out to our car, and opened the door to put Isaac inside. It smelled like I had left a sippy cup of milk open for the past two days. In the sun. For me, this was bad enough to breath only through my mouth. I scoured the car, trying to find the offending cup, but nothing was there! Finally, in desperation, I opened the trunk. Still no milk. And then I noticed a glass bottle lying in a small basket. Yep. It was the fish sauce. Still sealed! Even so, the smell took three solid car trips with all the windows open to get rid of.

The moral of the story? Fish sauce should live right where ours is living now: on the back patio.

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