I am committing myself to making more delicious Asian-inspired foods this winter. I love the care that goes into making beautiful Japanese food. I love the flavors of Korean and Vietnamese and Thai food. To get myself started, I looked for a recipe on the web for vegetarian fish sauce. There are quite a few! As far as I can tell, fish sauce serves to add salt and umami complexity to recipes. Most of the time, when I see fish sauce in a recipe, I just add extra tamari. We'll see what happens when I add my special phish sauce to Veggie Pho, and all the curries and soups I plan on making this winter.
Fysh sauce? It tastes gingery and sour and sweet and salty all at once. My first use of the fish sauce is in a big batch of vegetarian kim chi I am fermenting in the fridge. I'll let you know how it turns out in a couple of weeks!
Vegan Fish Sauce
Based on Ms. Nadja Dee Witherbee's recipe
Takes 1 hour
Makes 1 3/4 cups of sauce
2 cups wakame seaweed, broken up (I think I would use kombu next time)
3 dried shitake mushrooms
4 cups water
4 cloves garlic, smashed
1 1/2 TBSP black peppercorns
1/2 cup tamari
2 tsp. lime juice
2 tsp. lemon juice
2 TBSP rice wine vinegar
3 tsp. palm sugar
1 tsp. fresh grated ginger
1/4 tsp. chili powder
In a large pot, bring seaweed, mushrooms, and water to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes. Add remaining ingredients, bring to a simmer again, and cook for 30 minutes.
Let cool. Strain into a clean bottle. Store in the fridge, for up to 1 month.
Your house will smell intense while this is cooking! Moste Potente!
Let me know if you have a good name to call this stinky sauce by!
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I can't wait to hear how the kimchi turns out! I want to make some!!!!!!
ReplyDeletea good intense or bad intense smell?? apartment is not big!
ReplyDeleteAbby--we haven't tried the kimchi yet, we are waiting for the 1 week mark!
ReplyDeleteLady---It's not a bad intense smell. The sauce itself smells no where near as pungent as real fish sauce. But when I walked into my apartment after stepping outside for a bit, I was definitely confronted with the smell of the sea! It's a lot of seaweed simmering for awhile!
I would love to know how this came out. The only advice I would add is to add some pineapple juice. I got this tip from the daughter of a Philipino mother, who family had passed down their fish sauce recipe for many generations. I really think it adds an authenticity to the fake fish sauce. But I love the changes you made to my recipe.
ReplyDeleteMs Nadja Dee Witherbee
nadjadee@comcast.net