Fish sauce won't "spoil" however, because there's so much salt in there, no bacteria can grow; it just won't taste good if it's "old".

The authors have included a variety of recipes that Asian food lovers will definitely want to make. Plenty of rice and noodle dishes, and plenty of dishes using seafood, poultry, beef, and pork. Included are soups and stir fries, sandwiches and appetizers, as well as basics and sauces. Did you know that most of the popular TV shows and movies are based on books? So why not indulge in the original form of entertainment by immersing yourself in reading. Most importantly, it’s free with your Markham Public Library card.By reading books about protagonists who have overcome challenges, we are oftentimes encouraged to do the same. The right book can motivate you to never give up and stay positive, regardless of whether it’s a romance novel or a self-help book.

The book’s overall design is fun and fitting! I love the beautiful eye-catching colours and the wonderful fonts. I do wish more of the recipes had accompanying pictures. However, the included pictures are clean and bright with wonderfully simple staging that effectively highlights the gorgeous food. Other recipes in the cookbook looked delicious: Seafood Chowder, Pineapple Catfish Soup, and Walnut Pesto with Shrimp to just mention three. Although I love Vietnamese food, I have to admit to not knowing about the cult status of the famed Red Boat fish sauce, but I'm glad that I do now! This cookbook is also a very effective sales strategy, as I now want to try their fish sauce as well as their salt and peppercorns. More than that, though, the cookbook is also a family history, a treatise on how fish sauce is, and should be, made, and an explanation of the importance of sustainability in production. I really appreciate a cookbook that's inclusive and strives to present a well-rounded worldview of the cuisine it discusses. A lot of people don’t realize that a cookbook written by a company to promote their products is usually excellent because the company wants to make sure its customers continue to use their products in dishes they love. It’s an easy concept, but it works. One of the best examples of this is The Red Boat Fish Sauce Cookbook: Beloved Recipes from the Family Behind the Purest Fish Sauce by Cuong Pham, Tien Nguyen, and Diep Tran. This excellent cookbook contains family recipes, mostly, but not all, Vietnamese, using a premium brand of fish sauce which is essential to both Vietnamese and Thai cooking. Some brands use a "degree N" number to indicate the amount of protein in the fish sauce, for example Red Boat indicates 40°N while Megachef indicates 30°N. The higher the number, the more protein.Then to make the final bottle, the first press is combined with subsequent presses at a ratio specific to that brand. So the fish sauce quality is determined by how much of that first press is in the final product. The official cookbook of 100 recipes from the cult favorite and top chef lauded fish sauce brand, Red Boat Fish Sauce Then, you can start experimenting with non-traditional uses. Try using it in place of soy sauce in Asian cooking, but keep in mind that the flavours are very different, so try substituting just half of the soy sauce in stir fries or marinades see how it goes! If you don't consume animal products or you're allergic to fish, there are a few options. You can substitute soy sauce using a 1:1 ratio. However, if the fish sauce is the only seasoning and it's the main flavor, I do a combination of soy sauce and Golden Mountain Seasoning or Maggi Seasoning, just to give it a little more of a sharper flavour that seems to mimic fish sauce better. I loved this cookbook as much for the human story as for the recipes. Author Cuong Pham's tale of his escape from war torn Vietnam in 1979 and arriving in the United States nine months later, aged just twenty, is absolutely gripping. He took a degree and then got a job with Steve Jobs at a small computer company called Apple. This section of his story is surely worth an entire book in it's own right as his five siblings and other family members were also escaping from Vietnam to join him at this time, with their mother only able to join them in 1990.