Last week I made J. Kenji Lopez-Alt’s Sukang Sawsawan (Philippine Chile-Vinegar Dipping Sauce) recipe from The Wok cookbook to go with his Crispy Fried Pork Belly recipe.

The dipping sauce is made in a mortar and pestle. First black peppercorns are ground, and then garlic, chiles, onion, and salt are added and pounded into a paste. Sugar is added next and mixed until dissolved. Soy sauce and fish sauce are added next and then vinegar.

The sauce strikes me as a combination of Thai prik nam pla and prik nam som. Where the former is spicy and salty and the latter is sour and mildly spicy, this sukang sawsawan recipe is sour, spicy, and salty. We had it with the Crispy Fried Pork Belly and Megan and I both thought it was very tasty.

I’ll keep this sauce recipe on hand for the future.

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