While we often don’t think about how ingredients in our kitchen cupboard are made, people have been baffled by how easy it can be to make your own fish sauce – if you’ve got the time for it
Fish sauce has long been a staple in different types of Asian cuisine, where it’s used as a flavouring for different meals. But people are just realising it’s a lot easier to make than they expected.
While fish sauce has been widely used in different European foods throughout history, particularly in ancient Mediterranean cuisine, many people will associate modern fish sauce with Eastern and South-Eastern Asia, where it’s still a popular condiment. Due to its ability to add a savoury umami flavour to dishes, it has been embraced globally by chefs and home cooks. But many people don’t know the process of making just one bottle of fish sauce can take up to two years.
Taking to TIkTok, user @vanvufromvietnam has made a video where she explained the simple yet lengthy process of how to make fish sauce, and people are blown away at how easy it seems to be.
“Basically, fish sauce comprises of two elements: fish and salt,” she explained at the start of the video.
So how does just these two ingredients turn into a sauce? To make it, the fish and sauce are put together in alternating layers on a wooden vat for 12 to 24 months to ferment.
As the fish starts to ferment, an amber-coloured liquid will start to drip down from the fish mixture, as the fish starts to decompose by the salt.
“The amber coloured liquid of the fermentation process seeps down and is drained,” she explained in the informative video.
Seeing as the process is relatively easy, you can actually make it yourself. This was something a man named Johnny Kyunghwo decided to do, as he took to his social media platform to share his experience.
In his first YouTube video, he was seen cleansing off his freshly caught anchovies, which he had gotten from the food market that morning, with water.
“I don’t want to clean these too much, because I still want some of that fishy goodness,” he told his viewers. After this, it was time to mix the fish with the salt.
Opting not to measure anything, he started off by adding a couple of handfuls of fish into a large metal bowl before using an equal amount of salt. He then went on to toss it around with his hands, making sure the two ingredients mix together properly.
He then transferred the fish mixture into a large glass jar, which will allow him to see the fish and salt turn into fish sauce. As the jar filled up, he added one final thick layer of salt in order to seal in the fish. He then wiped the jar clean before securely closing the lid and placing it in a sunny and warm part of his home, which will help the anchovies break down.
Two months later, the sauce was ready for the next step. Opting to use a Korean method, he went on to scoop some of the now liquid fish mixture into a pot and boiling it, before straining it through three different sieves, making sure each sieve was finer than the last, with the third one being a coffee filter.
After it had gone through the coffee filter, Johnny was shocked to see the now amber liquid ready for him to taste in the glass bottle.
“I’m actually blown away at the flavour of this fish sauce, even after two months,” he said. “Of course it’s very salty, but the fish flavour coming through is super savoury and delicious.”
However, by allowing the rest of the fish mixture to stay for longer in the heat will allow more of the fish flavour to come through.