Home Style Vietnamese Chicken: Spilled Milk #135

The secret to this delicious dinner is a sauce that can add a perfect sweet/salty note to lots of meals.

I love fish sauce and fermented fish in any form. I love any food culture that uses them, and in southeastern Asia, coastal Africa, the Pacific Islands and Italy, there are many to cook from.

So last night I had a hankering for wok-tossed (you can use a sauté pan) chicken with fish sauce caramel, a classic Vietnamese technique utilizing a glaze called thit kho. And, yes, it’s spelled many ways.

The idea is a simple one, globally utilized in many places around the world. You make a shelf-stable sauce, one that will be used several ways over several days, a concept to anyone familiar to the Mexican, Desi, Malay, Asian or some African pantries.

In this case rather than an Indonesian chili sambal or a Japanese yakitori glaze, you are making a caramel, burning sugar slowly, seasoning it with shallots, fish sauce and spices. Then you bring it to a boil, dissolve any sugar solids and cool it. The sauce can last in a container for months in your fridge or days on a shelf.  Then you essentially add it to a stir fry or drizzle it over a grilled or roasted item any time you want the perfect sweet/salty note added to a meal.

Here’s how I did it: