Serving

Vegetarian Fish Sauce
California   -   Mam Nem Chay
Makes
Effort:
Sched:
DoAhead:		 6 oz
**
20 min  
Best		 Most Thai recipes call for fish sauce, and the rest of Southeast Asia isn't far behind. While I recommend a "don't ask, don't tell" policy regarding fish sauce, strict "ethical" vegetarians may not agree. Vegetarian fish sauce isn't easy to find. Some Asian markets catering to a Vietnamese community have it, but not Thai. Vietnamese vegetarians adhere to the stricter Chinese Buddhism, while Thai Buddhism is Indian and "don't ask, don't tell" seems to work for them.
I have purchased vegetarian "fish sauce", and, as others have, judge it between awful and disgusting, and not tasting anything like fish sauce. Do-it-yourself formulas I've read seem over complicated and I'm not confident of the results, so here I present a very simple and effective recipe. Of course you can't make a clear vegetarian version, but many real fish sauces are not clear - the clear stuff is the exception, not the rule.





1
1/2
1/2
2 		oz
t
c
t 		Seaweed, dried (1)
Salt
Yellow Bean Sauce (2)  
Rice Vinegar
  1. Crumble SEAWEED into a sauce pan and add enough cold water to still cover after the seaweed rehydrates. Add Salt and simmer slowly for about 15 minutes. Drain the seaweed, squeeze out all liquid and discard the solids (or use them for some other purpose).
  2. Simmer the Seaweed Water down to about 1/2 cup.
  3. Put Seaweed Water and Bean Sauce in a mini-prep food processor and run it until smooth.
  4. Stir in Rice Vinegar and store in a tightly sealed bottle. It should keep indefinitely in the fridge, and probably at a cool room temperature.
NOTES:
  1. Seaweed:   I've used dried Wakami, easily available in East and Southeast Asian markets, but feel free to experiment with others. For details see our Algae Page.
  2. Yellow Bean Sauce:   Get the ugly brown stuff in the bottle with a dragonfly logo (Kwong Hung Seng brand) - not all bean sauces are the same. Right there you're most of the way to fish sauce. For details see our Yellow Bean Sauce page.
  3. Devel:   This recipe may benefit from one dried black mushroom tossed in with the seaweed - I haven't had a chance to try that yet.
  4. U.S. measure: t=teaspoon, T=Tablespoon, c=cup, qt=quart, oz=ounce, #=pound, cl=clove in=inch
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