Fish sauce is made from fresh fish such as anchovies, snakehead fish, mackerel, herring, catfish, red snapper. If the fish for making sauce is small, leave it whole, if it is large, grind it and marinate it with salt, then over time ferment it into a thick brown fish sauce with a very strong aroma.
It's also strange, these types of fish are also common in the coastal areas of Quang Tri, Nghe An, Ha Tinh, but in these 3 localities, people rarely make fermented fish sauce or cook dishes with fermented fish sauce. Therefore, mentioning fermented fish sauce is mentioning cuisine from Hue pouring into the South Central region.
Central Vietnamese cuisine with Hue cuisine as the nucleus considers fermented fish sauce as an indispensable ingredient in typical dishes such as fermented fish sauce vermicelli, spring rolls, grilled pork vermicelli, pork rolls, clam rice. It can be the main ingredient of the dish or a dipping sauce.
Entering any popular rice shop in Hue, if you order boiled or roasted meat, people will always ask if you want to dip it in sour shrimp paste or fermented fish sauce. Many places also display both bowls of fish sauce so that diners can freely enjoy it, because each type of dipping sauce has its own delicious style.
Fermented shrimp paste, according to the personal experience of the writer, in addition to dipping boiled meat, roasted meat or making a sauce to mix salad, has not been seen to be used to create a vermicelli dish like fermented shrimp paste. Perhaps because of the flavor and taste of fermented shrimp paste, it is strong enough to create its own dish line.
Like fish sauce in the North Central region, fermented fish sauce is the most familiar fish sauce to people. In difficult times, a bowl of fermented fish sauce with a lot of spicy chili and spicy garlic is enough to turn a bowl of vermicelli not into a delicious dish. This bowl of fermented fish sauce vermicelli evokes the vermicelli dish sprinkled with diluted fish sauce and squeezed with lemon from a not-too-distant time in the North.
But unlike fish sauce or sour shrimp paste, the very salty taste of fermented fish sauce, when combined with other acrid ingredients such as lemongrass or young jackfruit - all of which are readily available "poor family" ingredients - creates a wonderful flavor.
Young jackfruit, in the North, is often called jackfruit buds, referring to jackfruit that has just taken shape, as big as an adult's fist, green peel, covered with sharp thorns but still soft. In the old days, after each summer storm, young jackfruit fell all over the garden but were only thrown away because they did not know how to eat, perhaps because there was no fermented fish sauce.
Young jackfruit is peeled off all the skin, revealing an ivory white flesh, then boiled and sliced into thin pieces to eat with fermented fish sauce. The buttery and astringent taste of young jackfruit balances the strong saltiness of fermented fish sauce, and then creates a new flavor combination that is very palatable and stimulates gastric juice.
In Gia Lai, there is also the dish of braised flying fish with young jackfruit and fermented fish sauce, creating a well-known local specialty, even entering folk songs: "Whoever returns, please tell the source. Young jackfruit sent down, flying fish sent up". That is young jackfruit from the An Khe - Tay Son forest fields exchanged for flying fish and fermented fish sauce in the Quy Nhon sea area to have a common dish.
Thus, fermented fish sauce and young jackfruit are the two main ingredients of traditional fermented fish sauce vermicelli, along with boiled pork skin with cinnamon. Later, there is an additional roasted meat dish, which is also a change of flavor for the fermented fish sauce bowl, because roasted meat has its own interesting parts such as crispy, firm, fatty, and greasy, completely different from boiled meat.
Nothing is simpler and easier to make than vermicelli with fermented fish sauce, because the most time-consuming step is just processing young jackfruit, boiling meat or roasting meat. Perhaps it only takes a few dozen minutes to finish a bowl of vermicelli with fermented fish sauce to treat family and relatives.
Thanks to that, vermicelli with fermented fish sauce appears everywhere, becoming a favorite filling or entertainment dish because it is delicious and convenient. That's why vermicelli with fermented fish sauce is one of the rustic and familiar dishes of Central Vietnamese people. This dish always satisfies the mouths thanks to its characteristic, very fragrant and rich flavor.
The aroma of fermented fish sauce, the fatty smell of pork, the pungent and spicy taste of satay, the buttery taste of young jackfruit, the cool and elegant taste of raw vegetables and herbs... all create an irresistible delicious taste of the fermented fish sauce vermicelli soup.
Although simple, bun mam nem also has its own rules. The structure of a bowl of bun mam nem consists of many layers. At the bottom is a layer of raw vegetables including lettuce and thinly sliced young jackfruit. Above it is a layer of fresh vermicelli, then a layer of boiled pork or roasted pork.
Now, many places also add new ingredients such as fermented pork roll, beef sausage, thinly sliced boiled pig ears and pig nose, tré, even boiled young intestines. Feel free to add and transform because the salty taste of fermented fish sauce will connect everything into a unified whole.
Then pour fermented fish sauce evenly. Arranging like that also has the same principle as Quang noodles. Because this is dried vermicelli, fermented fish sauce is poured last to absorb evenly from the meat through the vermicelli to the vegetables. You cannot pour too much fermented fish sauce to avoid salty taste, just make sure it is just enough to absorb the ingredients in the bowl.
On top of the bowl of new fermented fish sauce vermicelli, sprinkle a small pinch of golden roasted peanuts that have been peeled and a spoonful of satay to enhance the flavor. Depending on your preference, you can add fresh chili, a few cloves of fresh garlic, or other vegetables such as soaked sweet and sour green papaya, split water spinach, bean sprouts, mint, or squeeze a piece of lemon.
When eating, use chopsticks to mix to make the fermented fish sauce absorb the ingredients so that you can feel enough salty, sweet, spicy, and sour flavors of the vermicelli dish typical of Central Vietnam. The fragrant smell of fermented fish sauce and the strong saltiness will be the first thing to stand out in your nose and mouth, like the flavor that recognizes the dish.
After that, the saltiness of the fermented fish sauce will combine with the astringent taste of young jackfruit to highlight other flavors. But anyway, the saltiness and spiciness will make the eater almost gasp to tears, which is what makes people eat once and remember forever, and then become addicted to Central Vietnamese fermented fish sauce vermicelli without realizing it.
