Fish sauce - ideas please!

[bella29]

Please help me - I have found not one, but two bottles of fish sauce lurking in my cupboard. Some strange person has obviously sneaked them in there while I wasn't looking as I have never used it and wouldn't know how to

Please give me some ideas!

TIA

Bella

You can use it to enhance just about any savoury dish, as long as you don't add too much! It's one of those umami agents that Heston Blumenthal et al bang on about

What exactly do you mean by fish sauce, ie Thai fish sauce, anchovy paste, a sauce to have with fish? Bit more info needed.

Thai fish sauce - think it's blue dragon.

What's umami, molesworth?

Used in lots of Thai recipes so you could find some recipes for Thai curries etc and use it then. DH uses it in Thai fried rice.

You can add a dash to a Thai curry - prob lots of other uses but that's the only one I know.

Umami is the fifth taste - hard to describe but 'savoury meatiness' probably covers it. Fish sauce is of course used a lot in South East Asian cooking but you can add it to things like bolognese sauce (in moderation - you don't want it to actually taste fishy) as a flavour enhancer.

It is used (to my knowledge) to enhance dishess (rather like salt or soy sauce). As Molesworth said adding a small amount to dishes like chilli and bolegnese or casseroles, but only a small amoutn as it is fishy.

Good in thai crab and prawn cakes as well as loads of thai dishes.

Oh, thanks girls! And I now know what umami means - will drop that into a conversation somewhere Just hope no-one asks me to explain exactly what it is!

Might add a bit to my fishcakes for tonight's dinner too...