My favourite chilli dipping sauce

Perfect with fishcakes or rice paper rolls, delicious over steamed fish, or even as a salad dressing. There is almost always a bowl of this in my fridge!

Ingredients

• 2 x cloves of garlic, finely diced
• 4 x birds eye chillies, red and / or green, chopped fine
• 1 x tablespoon fish sauce
• 1 x teaspoon coconut flower nectar (alternatively, you can use palm sugar or any other sweetener of your choice)
• 1 x tablespoon of lemon juice

Before we begin…

This is literally the easiest dipping sauce to throw together. Just a word of caution, I am a chilli fiend so this may be a little spicy for most. You can easily tone down the spice by reducing the number of chillies you use. On the flip side, if you – like me – can’t eat anything without a good chilli kick, feel free to add an extra chilli and an extra clove of garlic. I always give my chillies a good “smack” with the side of my chopping knife, which makes them spicier (I cannot explain it, but it’s something I learnt at a cooking class in Thailand, and I swear by it).

Make sure you protect your hands before handling chillies. Sometimes my hands hurt a little from the burn of chilli membranes, so I rub my hands with a little olive oil (any other oil is fine) before handling chillies. When you wash your hands with soap afterwards, all the chilli should come off. Alternatively, another good trick is to wear rubber gloves.

Coconut flower nectar is not to be confused with coconut sugar (the stuff you get at hipster coffee joints) it’s a natural sweetener that looks a lot like thick creamed honey (see photo below). It can be a little difficult to source, but you can find it at most health food stores and some Asian grocers.

This recipe makes one small bowl (enough for one in my opinion!) that should be enough to serve 2-3 people.

Method

Add the garlic, chillies, fish sauce and lemon juice into a small mixing bowl and mix together.

Once combined, mix in the coconut sugar, and taste. Depending on how hot the chillies are, you may need to add a little more lemon juice to balance out the heat of the chillies.

You shouldn’t need to add any salt (fish sauce is very salty), but if you find you need a bit more salt, add a dash more fish sauce.

Other variations…

If you like coriander, add in a tablespoon of chopped coriander and some finely sliced fresh ginger. Alternatively, I sometimes add one small shallot finely diced and tablespoon of mint (normal or Vietnamese mint, whatever you have handy).