Basic Dipping Sauce (Nuoc Cham)

Makes ¾ cup

3 tablespoons lime juice (1 fat, thin skin lime)
2 tablespoons sugar
½ cup water
2 ½ tablespoons fish sauce

Optional additions:
1 small garlic clove, finely minced
1 or 2 Thai chilis, thinly sliced or 1 teaspoon homemade chili garlic sauce or store bought (tuong ot toi)

1. Make limeade. Combine the lime juice, sugar and water, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Taste and as yourself this question: Does this limeade taste good? Adjust the flavors to balance out the sweet and sour.

2. Finish with fish sauce. Add the fish sauce and any of the optional ingredients. Taste again and adjust the flavors to your liking, balancing out the sour, sweet, salty and spicy. Aim for a bold, forward finish -- perhaps a little stronger than what you'd normally like. This sauce is likely to be used to add final flavor to foods wrapped in lettuce or herbs, which are not salted and therefore need a little lift to heighten the overall eating experience. My mother looks for color to gauge her dipping sauce. When it's a light honey or amber, she knows she's close.

Notes

Advance Preparation - This sauce may be prepared early in the day and left to sit at room temperature.

Variation - Use half lime juice and half Japanese rice vinegar for a less assertive sauce. Some delicately flavored dishes require this

Salt, Pepper, and Lime Dipping Sauce
Muối Tiêu Chanh

Kosher salt is the best type to use for this recipe. It is coarse, less assertive than regular table salt, and a little sweet. Some versions use black pepper but I find that white pepper lends a wonderful pungent note. Assembling this sauce is fun, fast, and up to each individual. As the cook, all you have to do is set out individual dishes filled with the ingredients. If you don't have limes around, try a regular lemon or Meyer lemon.

Kosher or other coarse salt
White pepper
Lime wedges
Thinly sliced Thai or serrano chiles

1. Place each of the ingredients in a separate shallow dish, put the dishes on the table, and provide diners with individual dipping sauce dishes. Then, tell them how to go about assembling the sauce: First, put some salt and white pepper into the dish (2 parts salt to 1 part pepper is a good balance). Next, add a squeeze of lime. Finally, if heat is desired, use chopsticks to muddle some chile slices in the mixture to release their oils. That’s it. Diners should dip each bite of food into the sauce right before eating. They can make flavor adjustments and extra sauce as the meal progresses.

2. For a more elegant — and perhaps easier — assembly, set up a dipping sauce dish with mounds of salt and white pepper for each diner, and then let them add their own lime juice and chile.

Ginger Lime Dipping Sauce
Nuoc Mam Gung

Makes about 2/3 cup

Chubby 2-inch piece fresh ginger, peeled and minced
5 tablespoons fresh lime juice (2 or 3 limes)
2 1/2 tablespoons sugar
2 to 3 tablespoons fish sauce

In a small bowl, combine the ginger, lime juice, and sugar and stir to dissolve the sugar. Taste and adjust the flavors with more lime sugar or sugar as needed. The ginger and lime should both be prominent, but not to the point that they make you wince and pucker. Add the fish sauce, starting out with 2 tablespoons and adding more as your palate dictates. Set aside for 30 minutes to let the ginger bloom before serving.