Vegetarian Fish Sauce

I'm always a little exasperated at myself for my inexhaustible lust for vietnamese & thai food, just because I spend so much money on it.  Really, how hard can it be to reproduce a salady bowl of rice noodles at home?  Rice noodles, lightly steamed broccoli, lettuce, sprouts, green onion, cilantro, maybe a little fresh basil because I have some. The hardest part is getting the seasoning at least good, if not authentic.  Roasted chili paste will work nicely (that's roasted chilis, shallots & garlic in oil) with some kind of vegetarian fish sauce.

I searched my cookbooks, then the internet for a veg fish sauce alternative recipe.  Then I decided, fuck it, I'll make up my own.  I haven't had fish sauce in several years, and I'm not claiming it's similar really, but it's salty and has the pungent skank which is what you really want from your fish sauce.  All quantities approximate

2T soy sauce
1t shaohsing wine
1/2t black bean sauce with garlic
juice of 1/4 lime
2t kimchee liquid (make it yourself! it's easy!  reading ingredients lists is hard!)
I should probably add some sugar too.

A note about soy sauce:  I've been using a Japanese kind lately, Marudaizu, which is organic & has whole soybeans at the bottom (or so I hear - it's a dark soy).  It's not sweet and doesn't have the nasty burnt caramel flavor of lots of dark soy sauces.  Really beautiful, full flavor with a high, light scent.  I'm using it as a replacement for the awesome Thai soy sauce I ran out of and haven't been able to find since.  I can't remember the name, but the label was pale green with gold-foil.

Comments

[candace]

I am exactly the same way with my Thai... I am also a big fan of the organic Japanese soy sauce I've been using, even though it doesn't have cool beans at the bottom. (I really wanted an excuse to say "cool beans.")

[Jaime]

I've been also trying to find a vegetarian fish sauce, but my search seems very unlucky. Do u know of any Thai factory which actually produces it? as in Thailand and those areas there are several vegetarian people...

[Scott Swanson]

Even worse is trying to find a no-sodium or extremely low sodium fish sauce. If you're used to living on Thai food (as I was), a 1,000 mg/day sodium mandated diet is like a death sentence.

Did you ever find a veggie option? I know that there are organic vegetarian Worcestershire sauces that taste really good, so if they can mock anchovies for that, there's gotta be a way to do it for fish sauce. (The one I really like is the one by Edward and Sons, the Wizard's line. Details can be found at http://www.edwardandsons.com/organic_sauce.html if you are interested.)

[Sonja]

Was just looking for this recipe!

I hate to burst your bubble, though: one of kimchee's key ingredients is oyster sauce. Got any other recipes?

[Lulu]

Sonja - I've always made my own kimchee, thus can control whether my ingredients are vegetarian. Here in SF, there are several brands of vegetarian kimchee available at grocery stores.

[David]

Hey, I remember seeing a vegetarian fish sauce at the vietnamese supermarket near my place...next time I go, I'll make sure to note the brand (I'll probably buy some too)

[Chris]

Here's my personal recipe for vegetarian fish sauce. Same but different. I've bought the Thai-produced store version of "vegetarian fish sauce" before, don't waste your time...

http://thailandtravelandfood.blogspot.com/2007/10/vegetarian-fish-sauce.html

As a note to veggies looking to make the above recipe, kim chi usually has REAL fish sauce in it (which might make for a pretty convincing fake, you know?). Make sure you use the veg version...

[Dorrie]

Just so you know, kim chee contains dried shrimp...almost always.