Cucurbits + Nước Chấm
What’s a cucurbit?
Well, anyone in the big leafed, tendrilled, vining Cucurbitaceae family of course! In regards to our CSA, we’re talking about our cucumbers, watermelons, Korean melons, and delicatas.
What’s Nước Chấm?
Pronounced noke ch’m, this Vietnamese staple sauce consists of mainly fish sauce and limes juice. While remaining light and fresh, Nước Chấm plays with all of our tastes buds -- sour, sweet, spicy, umami, salty -- enhancing the dishes it is served with.
To Serve
Toss the cucurbits with Nước Chấm until everything is lightly covered and flavorful.
Top with roasted peanuts and fresh basil, mint, thai basil, and cilantro.
Cucurbits Preparation
Watermelon - Remove the rind, and cut into rough, 1” pieces
Korean Melon - also called “Sun Jewel” or in Vietnamese “Dura Gan” - Remove the yellow skin with a potato peeler, then cut in half and remove the seeds. Cut into rough, 1” pieces.
Delicata - Cut off ends, then cut in half and remove the seeds. Use a mandolin to cut into thin (⅛”) half moons.
Cucumbers - Cut in half, lengthwise, then cut into diagonals.
Nước Chấm
Note the large sway in the amounts of the ingredients. This sauce is heavily reliant on trusting your tongue. The sugar will balance out the lime and the salt from the fish sauce, the garlic will compliment the umami of the fish sauce, the lime will brighten the sauce, the water will make these very bold flavors palatable, and the chiles will finish it off with a kick.
2-3 T sugar
3-4 T fresh lime juice
⅓ - ⅔ C water
3-4 T fish sauce
1-2 cloves garlic, crushed
1-2 fresh chiles (serrano, thai, or jalapeno), sliced very thin or minced
Start off by mixing the lime juice, sugar, garlic and chiles together. As you mix the sugar to dissolve it, the acid from the lime juice will help to take some bite away from the raw garlic and chiles.
After the sugar has dissolved, add in the fish sauce. If you’re feeling bold at this point, give it a taste -- it will blow your hat off. Slowly mix in some water (little by little) -- after each addition, give it a small taste and observe how the water doesn’t “water down” the flavors, but actually makes them more accessible. Keep adding water until you are satisfied.
Be sure to adjust the ingredients as need be. Nước Chấm will keep in the fridge for months and will mature with time. Go ahead and make a big batch! It’s delicious with spring rolls, cold rice noodles, fresh veggies, grilled seafood and pork.
