Tag Archives: Red Boat fish sauce

Marinara Pasta with Secret Sauce

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Italian marinara pasta with bread crumbs gets a splash of Vietnamese fish sauce for the win.
Italian marinara pasta with bread crumbs gets a splash of Vietnamese fish sauce for the win.

My dad probably was never aware of the concept of umami.

All he knew was that a splash of soy sauce imparted a magical touch to so many dishes — from homemade steak sauce to a marinade for prime rib to Thanksgiving gravy.

He’d reach for that bottle of soy sauce instinctively, knowing it would add depth of flavor and a boost of savoriness to most anything it touched.

In much the same way, Vietnamese fish sauce is as indispensable in the kitchen.

If you know the fermented condiment made from black anchovies and salt only from its use in the ubiquitous nuoc cham dipping sauce served alongside so many dishes at Vietnamese restaurants, you know merely a fraction of its uses.

Explore just how versatile fish sauce can be in the new cookbook, “The Red Boat Fish Sauce Cookbook: Beloved Recipes from the Family Behind the Purest Fish Sauce” (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), of which I received a review copy.

It was written by the East Bay’s Cuong Pham, the former Apple engineer who founded Red Boat Fish Sauce, the game-changing brand that’s beloved by legions of top chefs and home-cooks.

After immigrating to the United States, he hunted high and low for the ultra fragrant, deeply amber fish sauce of his youth. When he couldn’t find any brands here that met his standards, he created his own in 2011, sourcing wild black anchovies off the coast of Vietnam and combining them with nothing but salt in wooden barrels to ferment the age-old way. In doing so, he created a fish sauce celebrated for its purity of flavor with no additives, enhancers, or preservatives.

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Red Boat’s Newest Product: Kho Sauce

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Red Boat's new braising sauce turns simple pork and Japanese turnips into something special.
Red Boat’s new braising sauce turns simple pork and Japanese turnips into something special.

The maker of artisan fish sauce, Red Boat, just debuted its newest product, Kho Sauce.

This flavorful bottled sauce, of which I received a sample recently, is designed to make braising a breeze.

Based on Red Boat Founder Cuong Pham’s family recipe, the sauce is a savory blend of the signature fish sauce (fermented with only anchovies and salt in the time-honored way), plus ginger, shallots, green onions, black pepper, crushed red pepper, and organic coconut sugar.

It’s briny, sweet, peppery, and a little spicy. It’s also gluten-free.

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Three Things to Enliven Shelter In Place, Part 2

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Celebrate the Year of the Ox by learning how to make banh chung. (Photo courtesy of the Banh Chung Collective).
Celebrate the Year of the Ox by learning how to make banh chung. (Photo courtesy of the Banh Chung Collective).

Celebrate Tet with A Banh Chung Online Cooking Class

Join in on the festivities for the Vietnamese New Year — from the comfort of your own kitchen — as Los Angeles chef Diep Tran instructs you virtually, 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. Feb. 6, with an ingredients kit you can pick up at participating restaurants in the Bay Area, Los Angeles, Houston, Dallas, and New York.

At the end, you’ll have your own sticky rice dumplings to feast on, filled with pork belly, shallots, and mung beans — all wrapped snuggly in banana leaves.

Festive packages of sticky rice dumplings. (Photo courtesy of the Banh Chung Collective)
Festive packages of sticky rice dumplings. (Photo courtesy of the Banh Chung Collective)

The $46 kit with class also includes a signature New Year dish from the participating restaurant or bakery to enjoy.

In the San Francisco Bay Area, the kits can be picked up prior to the class at: Buku Bakes, Little Window, and Noodle Girl.

Tran, who is also the research and development chef for Red Boat Fish Sauce, has been hosting her Banh Chung Collective for the past nine years. This time, she’ll be streaming from Alma Backyard Farms in Compton.

For tickets to this event, click here.

Luv’s Brownies Dessert Truck

South Bay chocoholics will be glad to know there’s a new dessert truck in town. Luv’s Brownies, known for its heart-shaped brownies, has launched its own food truck, which will be bringing sweet creations to the San Jose Rose Garden farmers market on Saturdays, and the Cupertino farmers market on Sundays.

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Red Boat’s New Nuoc Cham

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Red Boat's new nuoc cham concentrate dresses up most anything, including simple fish.
Red Boat’s new nuoc cham concentrate dresses up most anything, including simple fish.

You know that sweet, briny, and tangy Vietnamese dipping sauce you can’t get enough of for salad rolls, rice noodle bowls, grilled meats, and so many other dishes?

Making nuoc cham at home is not difficult. But it just got even more effortless with Red Boat’s new Concentrated Nuoc Cham.

Yes, Fremont’s Cuong Pham, the founder of the artisan Vietnamese fish sauce that’s beloved by the most discriminating chefs, just debuted this new product, of which I recently received a sample.

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Fish Sauce Caramel? You bet!

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Red Boat's new fish sauce caramels.
Red Boat’s new fish sauce caramels.

Red Boat has long been the fish sauce of choice for discerning chefs and fastidious homecooks.

Now, the artisan producer has branched out into making other products featuring Red Boat, the artisan fish sauce that’s made from only two ingredients: black anchovies and salt.

I had a chance recently to try samples of two new and fun products from the company that was founded by Cuong Pham, a former Apple engineer. When he couldn’t find any fish sauce brands in the Bay Area that had the purity and balance of what he grew up with in Saigon, he decided to make his own.

Now, Pham has partnered with a few gourmet food producers to make these specialty items. First up, Red Boat Caramels, which are made in partnership with Pasadena’s Little Flower Candy Company.

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