Fish Sauce

Because Thai Lettuce wraps are so tasty I have to counter point with something not at all tasty. This summer I happened to watch several food documentaries around the forth of July leading up to the Nathan's hotdog eating contest (Kobayashi is a hot dog Samurai). Not that I think that anyone was in doubt, but hot dogs are really gross as they are making them (and afterwards too). But the cool thing is that after they cook the dogs they take them out of the casing with what can only be described as a hot dog machine gun. Basically it is the coolest thing you can do with a hot dog.

Slowly I'm getting to the point... So after I saw the thing on how hot dogs were made I saw another behind the scenes, this time for imitation crab. You know things are not going to turn out well when you start with a squarish brick of something called surimi (Japanese for minced fish) and then you start processing it. It turns out they use what looked like exactly the same machinery as the hot dog plant did only the slurry was cream colored instead of pink. The results are the hot dog of the sea.

Now to the Thai food. So when I look for recipes for Thai food they always suggest you use something called "Fish Sauce". A rather generic termed sauce one could only expect that it is made of fish and tastes like fish (not being a fan of fish myself I never feel bad leaving it out). So in documentary number three (it was just a cooking show this time) I learned about the wonders of how fish sauce is made. First you get a big vat (bucket won't do, even if it is large enough, it has to be a vat). Fill the vat with anchovies (dead ones). Add some water and vinegar, maybe some salt too and let sit... for a year (covered). Finally squeeze the chunky parts to the bottom and the liquid at the top is Fish Sauce.