Makes: 1 1/2 cups

Many years ago – together with my mother – we went on Royal Thai dive, inspired mainly by David Thompson. So much so in fact, we did a the Royal Thai course at our local TAFE!

One of staples of Royal Thai is Naum Jim, a wonderfully hot, salty and sour sauce.

This interpretation from Chin Chin (of Melbourne and now Sydney fame) is on the money and our favourite weekday use of it, is to steam or pan fry some barramundi and then to pour over Nahm Jim. Serve along side some Asian greens tossed with sesame, soy, oyster, Chinese cooking wine and some dark caramel.

Healthy and yum!

Stored in the fridge for a few weeks so well worth the effort.

Ingredients

12 birds-eye chillies, chopped
6 large red chillies, chopped
2 cloves garlic
2 shallots, chopped
2 tbs grated palm sugar
1/3 c tamarind water
2/3 cfish sauce
2 tbs ground roast rice*

Method

1. Blitz the chillies, garlic, shallot and palm sugar. Add the tamarind water, fish sauce and ground roast rice, stir checking for seasoning. Should be hot, salty and sour.

* Roast rice in a pan until golden. Allow to cool and then blitz in a spice grinder until ground. Store in a dry container.