This Spicy No-Cook Sauce Has a Million Applications
Clear out your fridge and learn to balance the five tastes all in one go.
I always have these ingredients kicking around the fridge.
In any discussion about food, the worst insult I could possibly think of is calling a dish "dry."Moisture makes everything better from a mouth feel perspective and allows you to focus on the flavors in your dish rather than struggling to swallow your food. Sauces are singularly transformative, element that you can add to any meal you make. Take one of my very favorite no-cook sauces that you can whip up in five minutes: nam jim.
Nam Jim is a delicious thai green sauce traditionally used for dipping. Although the lime juice and the fish sauce in this dish oxidizes the color to a darker green, there is nothing dull about this sauce. What's more, the sauce freezes quite well if you wanted to make a larger batch of it and save it for later.
What’s more, this sauce truly embodies the spirit of intuitive cooking because the measurements are so relaxed. You really need to taste the ginger, cilantro, and pepper to see how much sugar or fish sauce you will add. As such, nam jim makes you consider the five tastes (salty, sweet, sour, bitter, umami) in order to get the desired end result. You also learn to balance heat with sweet depending on the spice of the ingredients. The lessons from this sauce translate to every other blended green sauce, whether it be an Italian pesto or a chimichurri.
Give it a go! Here’s this very simple “recipe” below.
Nam Jim
Approximate Ingredients:
1 Bunch Cilantro
1-2 Limes (Juice and Zest)
1-2 Cloves Garlic
1-3 Dashes Fish Sauces
1 Spoon Full Sugar (preferably Brown Sugar)
1-2 Chilis (Thai Bird, Serrano, or 1/2 Jalapeño)
Steps:
Blend ingredients together. Taste and adjust the seasoning accordingly.
Uses
Stumped on the uses for nam jim? Here’s this flow chart to get your creative juices flowing:
For More Thai Inspiration
Thai cuisine is among my favorite cuisines in the world: it fits so many different taste notes and reminds me how delicious and fresh food can be. However, I am not of Thai heritage, nor have I studied the cuisine extensively in kitchens that pay homage to traditional Thai cuisine. In order to properly honor the cuisine, it seems important to note Thai chefs proudly representing the food near and dear to their hearts. Here are some tremendously successful Thai-American chefs worth looking to for recipes and inspiration. I have listed their restaurants and their cities as well:
Anne Redding, Uncle Boons, New York, NY
Kris Yenbamroong, Night + Market, Los Angeles, California
Chutatip "Nok" Suntaranon, Kalaya, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Digging the sauces?
You can learn more information like this in my Intuitive Cooking classes! Each class teaches a skill set that translates far beyond the “recipe” we learn that day, whether it be a sauce that you can use for every meal or the proper way to press and cook tofu. Check me out under your “cooking classes” tab above.
