Thai Chili Fish Sauce

Every Thai kitchen has a jar of this stuff within arm’s reach, and once you make it, yours will too.

Nam pla prik is the backbone condiment of Thai cooking: fish sauce spiked with serrano chiles, fresh lime juice, garlic, scallions, cilantro, and roasted chili paste.

It’s salty, sour, spicy, and aromatic all at once.

Splash it over rice, noodles, grilled meats, soups, fried eggs, or pretty much anything that needs a jolt of flavor. It takes about five minutes to stir together and keeps in the fridge for three days.

Kitchen Tips

• Mince the serranos as fine as you can so the heat distributes evenly throughout the sauce.
• Taste as you go. The balance of fish sauce to lime juice is personal, so adjust until it hits that sweet spot between salty and sour.
• This sauce is meant to be potent. A little goes a long way, so start with a few drops and build up.