The Red Boat Fish Sauce Cookbook: Beloved Recipes from the Family Behind the Purest Fish Sauce

Smoothly imparts the umami of Anchovies to any dish that needs it.

I have been wanting this book for awhile and finally got it. I appreciated a lot of the reviews but this is what I think is important: Fish sauce is a unique flavor profile and for those of you unfamiliar with its use, this cookbook has several great recipes to start using it and upping your cooking game. The recipes are simple and have big flavor payoff. The easiest may be the marinara sauce. I put it on tofu fettucine noodles and it was amazing as a light dinner. I wanted to try the morning glory - a kind of dark leafy vegetable found in asian markets - but since I didn't have any, I used swiss chard and it was amazing. Now, whenever I'm cooking something and the food needs a little "something" I pour a little fish sauce on it. No one knows what the mystery ingredient is, but it really enhances flavor. Good luck!

Who would have known that beef stew needed fish sauce!? So many good ideas here.

For anything from making bacon to making a Michelada. From pickles to mayonnaise. For eggs, veggies, beef, pork, fish, sauces, drinks and sweets.This cook book—written for Red Boat Fish Sauce lovers--contains a mélange and eclectic group of treasured family recipes from the family which grew this fish sauce into a world-renowned product. Calling them “treasured” recipes does not necessarily mean heirloom or traditional or holiday dishes, but those are in the book as well as novel, new, ingenious and innovative recipes. You may find this book a treasure trove of ideas, or maybe you will come away empty-handed. It’s one of those kinds of books. You will come away with a better understanding of fish sauce. And, admit it: A better and more complete understanding of, well, anything, is valuable, and worth something.Recipes in this book explain the Red Boat business and family, how fish sauce is made, and recipes that use Red Boat fish sauce, Red Boat palm sugar and Red Boat salt.Here are some highlights:--A Caesar salad with fish sauce in place of anchovies.--Bacon flavored with fish sauce: Either from pork-belly-scratch or from store-bought.--A caramelized palm sugar fish sauce ginger chicken braise.--There's a great pork roast made with rolled center-cut pork belly--Nine fish-sauce-based sauces (nuoc cham).--A Mexican chicken tinga with fish sauce.--Plenty of veggie pickles--Plenty of fried food recipes.There are some pretty pictures, but they dwindle as the book progresses. Plenty of bright, colorful pages.

I did not expect much for the price I paid, but this is such a thorough and beautifully written book. So many great recipes. Love love love!

I bought this as a gift for one of my sons, along with a bottle of Red Boat Fish Sauce. he and his wife are both excellent cooks who love ethnic foods of all kinds, and enjoy experimenting with new foods. He uses fish sauce in Asian recipes anyway, but had never tried this one, or heard of the book. He just got it yesterday, so hasn't had a chance to use the book or the sauce yet, but is looking forward to doing so.

This review is based on having made eleven recipes from the book with a few more I will eventually make. The list of recipes and comments on each is at the end of this review. A quick summary of the shortcomings of the book: - small number of recipes, overemphasis on pork belly, very limited vegetable dish selection, a number of dishes only suitable to large group special occasions, and over promotion of Red Boat products. There are a some very, very good dishes in the book but its shortcomings keep it from a higher rating.I came across Red Boat looking for a fish sauce without added sugar. This was a medical necessity for a friend we were cooking for. With the quality of Red Boat fish sauce and the story behind it I wanted to give the cookbook a higher rating but cannot based on my perceived deficiencies in it.Here are the biases behind my review. The stories on the history of Red Boat, its manufacturing and family history are interesting but add little value to the book for me. (I understand this is a much more valid value to others.) A far greater interest to me are the recipes I will find in a cookbook. Also, the American dishes modified to use Red Boat did not hold much interest to me. I was wanting new Vietnamese recipes. On a positive note the recipes in this book have little overlap with the other two Vietnamese cookbooks I own [“Into the Vietnamese Kitchen” by Andrea Nguyen and “The Little Saigon Cookbook” by Ann Le.] The last bias is we do very little deep frying so that knocked out a few of the recipes for us.Here are the shortcomings to the book. In total there is a fairly small number of recipes in the book and a fair portion of them are for sauces and stock. There are 22 recipes using pork, 12 call for pork belly and five have only pork belly as a main ingredient. I would have liked more variety in the cuts of pork used and this is certainly not good if you are trying to limit calories. The book is very short on vegetable offerings; I believe there are only six strictly vegetable recipes. There are a fair number of recipes you would only make for showcase dishes at a large party, not something to make for a family dinner (ex. Imperial Rolls, pg. 52, and Sugarcane Shrimp, pg. 116). With only two at home and occasionally hosting dinner parties up to eight these recipes have little use to us. Lastly, the book calls for using white sugar as a substitute when Red Boat Palm Sugar, which the book states is very limited in supply, is not available. No! Use the palm sugar you can find in Asian and Hispanic groceries. It will give a truer taste to the dish over white sugar. On a neutral note, most of the recipes in the breakfast section are for homes where someone is getting up 1.5 hours early to prepare them for the rest of the household. Except for the porridge, I made these as lunch or dinner dishes.Recipe List:Braised Black Pepper Pork, pg 94: Outstanding, 5 stars. Made this a second time with pork shoulder to reduce the calories. Not as good but still excellent.Braised Ginger Chicken, pg 96: 5 stars. I like ginger but was leery at using a half cup of it but 3 out of 3 eaters said the ginger slices were the best part.Shrimp with Green Beans, pg 70. another 5 stars. tastes great - quick and easy to make. Fifth star is for having the beans in it.Braised Shrimp, pg 100: 4 stars. Another very tasty and quick and easy dish.Chicken Soup with Cellophane noodles, pg 35: 4 stars - this is like the noodle breakfast dishes my wife fell in love with on a trip to Malaysia.Mushroom and Egg Porridge, pg 39. This is an unassuming but good and satisfying breakfast dish. Would probably disappoint eaten at other meals.Fried Egg Meat Loaf, pg 43: The dish was subtle to a little bland in flavor - depending on ones viewpoint. I used 1.5 lb. of chicken and 3 eggs without increasing the portions of the other ingredients which can account for the weak/mild flavor.Fish Sauce Marinated Eggs, pg 42: The book gives 4 hours as the minimum to marinate; I recommend 8 hours as the minimum. The wife and I were not wild over these but I can easily see them much more enjoyable to others.Lemongrass Chili Oil, pg 288: Very nice condiment. I use this with many dishes and sometimes use it in place of Sabal Olek. Cut the recipe in half. You will still end up with 2 cups.Fried shallots and shallot oil, pg 290: This is okay but have not come up with many uses for the oil besides frying more shallots. Expect the oil would be very good making home fries or hash browns, which I have not yet done.Bloody Mary, pg 257: A tasty drink but cannot say it is worth all the extra work over a regular Bloody Mary. If I make it again it will be for the originality when serving to others. Note: made this with home-grown yellow tomatoes which is what I had on hand at the moment. Yellow tomatoes are less acidic and milder in taste than red tomatoes so that did affect the final product - not sure if significantly.

Lots of good ideas in this book. Plenty of familiar Vietnamese recipes and others that pleasantly surprised me.

I read this recipe book cover to cover as soon as I picked it up and marked several recipes to try. It has some great recipes and a lot of history for the Red Boat product and the family that created it. The recipes I have tried so far were delicious. Do not expect to substitute regular fish sauce though, Red Boat is the best.