Thai-style dipping sauces with sticky rice

Dishes involving dipping sauces from Laos and Thailand are something I find hard to resist if ever I see them on a restaurant menu. Those sauces typically accompany something like grilled fish or smoked and grilled meats, plus a bamboo basket of sticky rice that begs to be eaten with your hands. It’s a simple combination but with long-lasting impact; one I found necessary to replicate at home frequently when 2020’s pandemic hit and I could no longer get out to those restaurants. The nam phrik (dried shrimp, lime and fish sauce dip) works best with fish, while the more intense yet also rounder tamarind-spiked nam jim jaew (tamarind and chilli dip) is one for rich, fatty and smoky (if you have an outdoor grill) meats. Base each dip on the guidelines overleaf, but every fish sauce is different, as are the limes and the tamarind pulp you use, so taste and adjust. Both have a touch of chilli-heat in them, and indeed the sourness should be tempered by salty fish sauce and sugar too, but the balance should edge in favour of mouth-puckering. The sticky rice and the dipping sauce recipes here are suitable for four people, as an accompaniment to meat, fish or vegetable centrepieces of your choosing. The ground roasted rice is required for the nam jim jaew. (This recipe makes far more than you need for the nam jim jaew (overleaf). However, the excess can be stored in an airtight container for quick use in future meals, including the laab.)

Unbalanced

% Daily Values based on a 2,000 calorie diet

Step 1

Heat the oven to 200°C/180°C fan/400°F. Spread the rice over a baking sheet so that it fits in one layer. Bake in the middle of the oven for 35–40 minutes until golden, shuffling the tray after 25 minutes. Grind to a grit (rather than a dusty flour) using a pestle and mortar or by pulsing in a spice grinder. To avoid much of it becoming dust-like you will need to do this in three or four batches, depending on the size of your mortar/grinder.

Step 2

You will need a steamer and a muslin cloth (cheesecloth) or fine sieve (strainer) that fits within it.

Step 3

Measure the rice into a container and completely cover with just-boiled water. Leave to soak for 1 hour. Drain the water, then either leave the rice in the sieve or decant into a muslin cloth, tie, and place in a steamer basket over a pan of water at a rolling boil. Cover and steam for 30 minutes. Transfer to a serving dish, cover with a clean dish towel and leave to steam, cool and dry out a bit for 10 minutes more – in fact it could sit like this for another half an hour (it will still be warm enough).

Step 4

Serve with butterflied and grilled sardines, herrings, mackerel, grilled fillets of mullet or bream, flat fish like plaice or sole, or crisp-skinned fried trout or salmon.

Step 5

Put the dried shrimp and garlic in a mortar with a pinch of salt and pound with a pestle until well bashed (this might seem unlikely to begin with, but you’ll get there). Add the chilli and coriander and pound again until you have a paste. Add the sugar and grind that in, then measure in the fish sauce, water and lime juice and mix well. Divide between a few saucers for easy dipping.

Step 6

Serve with barbecued or roast chicken legs, crisp-skinned duck breasts, pork or lamb chops.

Step 7

Put the tamarind in a small bowl or mug, then add three tablespoons and an extra splash of the just-boiled water. Allow it to soak for 30 seconds, then mash the pulp with the back of a fork, encouraging the tamarind to dissolve and also thicken a little. Push this through a fine sieve (capturing the paste), then repeat with an additional two tablespoons of just-boiled water. Discard the seeds and woody bits once done.

Step 8

Combine all the ingredients except the ground rice in a small bowl. When ready to eat, add half the rice powder and stir, then divide between a few saucers for easy dipping and sprinkle the remaining ground rice on top.