Hue Cuisine - sauces

Vietnamese cuisine is noted for its extensive use of sauces, often specific to a particular dish. Preparing such sauces has become an art form in Hue.

Whenever you sit down to a Vietnamese meal, be it in Hue or anywhere else in the country, your various dishes will nearly always be accompanied by some sort of sauce. Try to look upon it as an essential element of the meal rather than an optional addition.

The purpose of sauces in Vietnam is to subtly enhance the key flavours of a particular dish rather than introducing a new flavour as is the practice in European-based cooking. Using the wrong sauce may spoil the taste of the dish. The simplest sauce is a bowl of fish sauce mixed with chopped chillies, garlic, lemon, pepper and sugar, or fermented fish sauce seasoned with garlic, chillies and lemon. A particular favourite among Hue people is soy sauce mixed with sugar. This accompanies ‘banh khoai’, a rolled pancake filled with bean sprouts, shrimp and beef.

A sauce made from prawns boiled with fish sauce and mixed with lemon is designed to blend with boiled vegetables.

Another sauce based on the yolks of eggs, a distant relation to mayonnaise, makes eating boiled lobsters or crayfish a gourmet experience.