In addition to the đồ chua, I also made Nước Chấm for the bún trộn tôm recipe from J. Kenji Lopez-Alt’s The Wok cookbook. We’re already familiar with nước chấm and enjoy it as part of some other recipes we like.

Kenji’s method is a little more involved than preparations I’ve made before. He calls for pounding garlic and, optionally, a Thai bird chile in a mortar and pestle with salt until it makes a rough paste. Then sugar, lime juice, fish sauce, and bit of water are stirred in.

Usually I just mince some garlic and add that to the lime juice/fish sauce mixture. With Kenji’s method, the garlic completely dissolves into the liquid, and the chile gives a nice background heat.

I like having a recipe for nước chấm on hand instead of searching the internet whenever I want to make some.

I am cooking my way through J. Kenji Lopez-Alt’s The Wok cookbook. Read more about it.