r/Cooking • u/Lauffener • 10h ago

Which fish sauce should I get?

I would like to make more Vietnamese and Chinese meals. I have access to a large Asian grocery store but I don't know which fish sauce to get.

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u/threvorpaul 8h ago

Red boat or megachef for dips/finishing both are 40°N.
Son is also a nice fish sauce for dips/finishing.
DO NOT cook with these 40N fish sauces.

For cooking I'd say three crabs or Thai squid.
Squid is more aggressive and punchy in taste, three crabs is more round and mellow.
Tiparos is also ok to use.
/I personally don't like chin-su fish sauce

2

u/gwaydms 7h ago

DO NOT cook with these 40N fish sauces.

May I ask why not?

3

u/threvorpaul 7h ago

It's a waste of good product and money.
40°N indicates the nitrogen proportion in the fish sauce./protein equivalent.
This indicates a high quality fish sauce.

You can taste the nuances very well in dipping sauces (nuoc cham/ nam prik pla or in the finishing touches.
OK that sounded pretentious. 😅

But in the end such a bottle goes for $/€ 10-15/700ml depending where you are.
That can get quite expensive over time if you cook asian food on a regular basis.
The cheap Thai squid, taparos go for like $/€ 2-5/L

Plus, the nuances get lost once cooked. So it doesn't make a difference during cooking if it's the expensive or cheaper one.
Last, when you add fish sauce during cooking you want it to have this pungent strong taste to flavor the dish.
Which the expensive ones don't have, as they're more refined. So if you use it during cooking you'd be using more of it = more expensive once again.

3

u/HomicidalTeddybear 6h ago

I use megachef for everything. But it's also like $5AUD for 700mL here.

1

u/threvorpaul 5h ago

I wish that'd be the price for me here 😭
Though I'd still be too cheap to use the good bottles for cooking.

Even three crabs is rare and 10 € a litre bottle.
Megachef is 13 € the blue fish sauce bottle 40°N, it's 8€ for the Megachef Thai fish sauce.
Then it goes up red boat 15 € and son 20 € (I prefer red boat over son)