Lack of anything is acceptable but lack of sauce – that is the psychology of most Vietnamese when eaten, because if the lack of it, the meal will not be perfect anymore.
The sauce on the Vietnamese table is so rich that it has become the essence of cuisine, making Vietnamese dishes different from other ethnic dishes.
Decisive sauce
Whether in a simple home feast or luxurious banquets, the bowl of sauce cannot be absent. A full meal must have enough salty dish, stir-fried dish, soup and a bowl of sauce located in the middle of the tray.
The bowl of this sauce depends on the type of food that can be chili sauce, garlic sauce, fish sauce, shrimp sauce, ginger sauce, soy sauce, fish sauce, pepper sauce, lemon pepper salt sauce, stew pork and dried shrimp sauce and so on.
The sauce is only accompanying, that is to say only play “supporting” but very important, deciding the quality of the “main role” which is the salty dishes, vegetables. A dish of fried fish cannot be good without a bowl of chili sauce. A plate of pork must always accompany the bowl of shrimp sauce.
Steamed prawns, boiled crabs, must have lemon pepper salt sauce to stimulate taste. Boiled vegetables, but lack of bowl of sweet Kho quet of Southern style would be extremely bland.
Boiled chicken is required to have salt to lemon leaves. Duck with fish sauce with ginger. Spring rolls should be eaten with peanut sauce.
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Therefore, besides having to know how to cook the main dishes so delicious: choosing clean and fresh materials, accurate cooking time, relishing the spices, the Vietnamese chef also has to know the different sauce recipes.
There are dozens of sauce recipes for each dish. Sometimes the same ingredients as fish sauce, garlic, sugar, vinegar or lemon, chili but each of sauces has its own way to make.
For example, with fish in the Southern style, the chili sauce is slightly sweet, while eating bun cha of Hanoi – Hanoi traditional food, the fish sauce is lighter and sourer.
Stir-fried snails in the south are eaten with lemon or butter sauce, onion and peanut while in the North there are hot snails dishes with a bowl of famous sauce including fish sauce, ginger, lime, and chili.
Therefore, Vietnamese food, delicious or bad, principally due to the sauce. The sauce is wrong, lack of taste or not right taste, the dish will be lost “some success force” no matter how sophisticated cookery.
The sauce concept
This is only a small bowl of sauce usually placed between the tray, but sometimes contains a truth about life with enough sour, spicy, salty, sweet taste.
For the Vietnamese, the sauce is not just a side dish to enhance the taste of the main dish, but also a point connecting family, showing the community of people eating together.
Maybe in the meal, some people like to eat salty food, the other people just like fried food, other like the soup, but almost everyone shared the sauce in the middle.
The bowl of delicious sauce is also a strong bond to help retain memories of the homeland.
And nowhere like Vietnamese cuisine, the sauce, in addition to the delicious type also includes the smell sauce, which not everyone can eat such as shrimp sauce, fish sauce, seasoned fish sauce, Crab sauce.
But if you have eaten and like it, it is difficult to give up. For example, fish sauce with chopped pineapple, garlic, chili, sugar is an indispensable sauce of beef with vinegar, steamed fish with rice paper rolls.
Vermicelli with fried tofu – Hanoi street food must be eaten with shrimp sauce which includes sugar, spicy peppers. Shrimp paste in the south is used with bacon, lemongrass or green mango, sour ambarella.
So, the bowl of “small but important” sauce has become an irreplaceable soul in Vietnamese cuisine. Wherever the Vietnamese go, whatever they eat, they will find that this food is not as good as of their home.
From the very cheap ingredients such as garlic, chili, lemon, ginger, lemongrass, peanut, tamarind, pepper, fish sauce, sugar, seed, papaya, kohlrabi, coconut milk, chicken liver, a variety of the sauce is formed throughout the country, contributing to the Vietnamese cuisine is extremely rich, unique and attractive.
In cooking class in Hanoi, you will know how to make a bowl of delicious sauce with each dish.