SC - fish (OP)

[Stefan li Rous]

Adamantius asked me:
> > Thanks, folks. Before hearing the descriptions and comments on 'fish
> > sauce' here, I doubt I would have considered this dish. I also have a
> > bottle or two of fish sauce here at home that I bought when exploring
> > some of the Asian groceries here in town. Again, because of comments on
> > this list. But I hadn't opened the bottles yet. I did open one of them
> > tonight when I added some to the leftover rice and sauce I brought
> > home from the restuarant.
> 
> What kind of fish sauce did you buy? Nam pla, nuoc mam, patis, what? 

Er, ah. I'll have to go check. Until you asked this, I hadn't realized
there actually were a bunch of variations. While there were different
bottles in the Asian store(s), I just picked one.

The one from my local grocery is Thai Kitchen brand and says "made from
the first pressing of salted anchovies and aged for a smooth flavor. No
water and no added sugar. The ingredients list says: anchovy extract
and sea salt.

The other brand (the one I used last night) is Assi brand. Ingredients
are anchovy, salt and water. The label doesn't really say much. Hmm. No
"Nutrition Facts" label. I thought those were required on processed
food in the US.

So I have no idea what kind of fish sauces these are. Generic?

I'll have to keep these names in mind the next time I go wandering in
an oriental food mart. Of course these two bottles may well last me
quite a while.

Wish I could identify more of the items, including the processed food
items in the oriental markets. Many of them don't even have English
labels and even fewer have directions. :-) I might try more if I had
an idea of what to do with them or in the case of the processed foods,
how to cook them.

>I
> think nuoc mam is the mildest, and I've found that patis is about the
> closest to the garum I tasted at the A&S event we did a while back, but
> it is quite... aromatic, when heated You might want to cook with it when
> your lady wife is out ;  ) . When I used patis in an Anthimus recipe
> workshop, I turned my back for a minute and some bounder let off some
> kind of fish-packed stink bomb on site. It was enough to put one off
> one's patis.  

- -- 
Lord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
Mark S. Harris             Austin, Texas           stefan at texas.net
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****