How Thai Fish Sauce Is Made and the Detailed Steps

In Thailand, there is no one who does not know how fresh and savory fish sauce tastes; it is one of the seasonings commonly used by the Thai people when cooking dishes.

Fish sauce tastes salty and extremely savory, with a slight fishy smell of fish and shrimp. It is rich in calcium, iodine, protein, fat and other minerals, and is eaten in the same way as soy sauce.

Thailand has a long history of making fish sauce. The earliest consumption of fish sauce in Thailand began during the reign of King Narai of the Ayutthaya Dynasty (AD 1656-1688). It is said that because Thailand has so many fish, many small fish are extremely cheap, and fish that cannot be eaten are often used to make fish sauce.

Production method The fish used to make fish sauce can be freshwater fish, fine shrimp or river mussels, or sea fish. Most commonly used are snakehead fish and leaf fish. In the home, the method of making fish sauce is: take a certain amount of fresh fish and salt and mix them in a ratio of 3:4 or 1:2. This ratio is not fixed, but the salt must be more than the fish, so as to avoid the fish body rotting and stinking. Mix the salt and fish together, stir thoroughly, then put them into a jar and pickle for three to four months. The fish body shrinks, becomes soft and mushy, and a pale yellow water leaks out and fills the jar. This is when the Thai people scoop out this yellow transparent liquid, and after filtering or steaming it can be eaten immediately. This liquid is fish sauce. Because it is the original fish juice, the taste is exceptionally savory, which is very different from the taste of fish sauce sold on the market.

The fish sauce sold on the market is produced on a large scale with modern methods. In order to save manpower, material resources and capital, some factories often add chemicals to the fish to speed up the softening of the fish body. Some add large amounts of seawater and boil it, so as to obtain a large amount of fish sauce at one time and seek high profits. This kind of fish sauce is low in price, not high in nutritional value, and far inferior to that made at home.