The best fish sauce in the world can be found in Phú Quốc, Vietnam. On the island, Red Boat Fish Sauce harvests local black anchovies, known for their strong umami flavor, and ferments them in wooden barrels for 12 months to make its premium fish sauce. Listen to how this iconic ingredient inspired Cuong Pham, the founder and CEO, to keep the 150-year-old tradition alive.
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00:00Fish sauce is a backbone of the Vietnamese cuisine.
00:05Fish sauce is usually made from two ingredients, the fish and the salt.
00:11It makes a huge difference depending on where you make it and how you make it.
00:16The Red Bull fish sauce is produced using traditional method
00:20that has been used for making fish sauce in Phu Quoc for over 100 years.
00:25This island is known for producing the best fish sauce in the world.
00:38Everything is starting in the ocean, so you've got to have the credit to the fishermen.
00:45Every fishing boat is accompanied by three light boats.
00:51If they find the sign of the anchovies swimming around there,
00:55they would light it up and they wait.
00:58Usually for the light to be bright enough, it has to be at night.
01:03So when the anchovies detect the light, they would come.
01:07You get them all together before you can drop the nets and fish them.
01:13Once the anchovies get off the net, they immediately salt the fish right on the boat.
01:20It preserves it from being rotten.
01:22They kill the bad bacteria and they promote the good ones to thrive.
01:26And that's a very, very important first step.
01:42These are the anchovies we caught last night.
01:45These are the anchovies we caught in the Phu Quoc sea.
01:48They were already salted. They're still fresh, not smelly at all.
01:52They're very good.
01:53When you salt them right away, the fish doesn't turn red.
01:56They're very dry.
01:57The water has been removed.
02:00That's why these anchovies are very good.
02:05There are many kinds of anchovies, but the one that's found here is the black anchovies.
02:10It yields a higher protein than other types of fish from other regions.
02:14Protein turns into the umami, and that's the flavor that can be used in the cooking.
02:21Fish sauce, how it's made, is salted fish and fermented over a period of time.
02:26So the enzyme is the thing that lives inside the fish guts, right?
02:32So that's why we're not gutting it out, because that's all the agent that breaks out the fish.
02:37So we salted the whole anchovies.
02:40So this is all happening naturally.
02:49This is Red Boat Barrel House.
02:51This is where we do fermentation using traditional methods.
03:00There are about 75 barrels right here.
03:03Each barrel can hold about 13 tons of salted anchovies.
03:08The wood we use is very traditional wood, like balai, yen yen.
03:13This is all the old traditional barrel house use.
03:18This barrel can last for a very long time, 50 years easily.
03:26This is the beginning, like 100 years ago, this is the barrel.
03:30We want to keep it just so that we have something to refer back to.
03:40When the salt is applied to the fish, it flushes out all the liquid from the fish,
03:44because fish has a lot of water. We don't want those waters to be in the fermentation.
03:50See how cloudy the fluid is?
03:54The next critical step is we're validating the amount of salinity that goes inside the fish.
03:59We're looking at basically the density of the salt.
04:03So when it's lower than 24, then we compensate it by putting salt in here and then we keep circulating it.
04:30This barrel has been here for a month.
04:34The salinity is very high.
04:36So after a month, the salinity of the fish will change color.
04:41And every month, the color will be more beautiful, the taste will be richer.
04:46Wow, the salinity of this barrel is very fragrant.
04:50And the third thing is we taste it.
04:52It's very salty, because it hasn't been fermented much.
04:55But after 2-3 months, it will be better.
04:58So the prospects of this barrel will be very good.
05:06The barrel has been here for 3 months, now we're going to get the color.
05:09It's darker than the previous barrel, so we know it's going to be better.
05:15After 6 months, the color is more beautiful.
05:18It's redder.
05:19Let's see.
05:21Wow.
05:23The taste is salty, rich, and the aftertaste is very sweet.
05:28The aftertaste is already sweet.
05:29I know this barrel will have a higher salinity.
05:33This barrel will win for sure after 12 months.
05:36Yes.
05:42This year, I'm working at Red Post for the 11th year.
05:46After 1-12 months, I feel like a child.
05:54After 12 months, the product is very good.
05:58I like it very much.
06:01This barrel has been fermented for 12 months.
06:04Now we know it has a high salinity.
06:06Look at the color.
06:11This is the typical color of Phu Quoc fish sauce.
06:13The color is yellowish.
06:15Red amber.
06:17It's salty, rich, and the aftertaste is very sweet.
06:25In Vietnam, fish sauce is mandated that you have to disclose the N, the total nitrogen, on the sauce
06:31so that the consumer knows what they're paying for.
06:3340N means 40 grams of nitrogen per liter.
06:37The nitrogen is related to the protein level that's inside the sauce.
06:43Every year, we have one barrel that pops, meaning the protein level is so high.
06:49It's so good.
06:51So we decided to call it a family reserve.
06:54That's a gift from Mother Nature.
06:56How many grams is this barrel?
06:58I measured it the other day.
06:59How many grams?
07:0040 something.
07:0148 something.
07:0348 grams.
07:04The other barrels are usually 40, 41, 39 grams.
07:07This one is 48 grams, which means it's a lot higher.
07:11So we don't put this in with the others.
07:14We only make small barrels to make it special.
07:18Try it. I'm addicted to this smell.
07:21Everything is fermenting naturally, so the result is different.
07:2539, 40, 41, 38, 42.
07:29Even though right next to each other, the same batch of fish you load,
07:33the same boat load, it comes out slightly different.
07:37We kind of blend it so we achieve the color, the aroma, and the flavor
07:43so that it would be consistent.
07:58So that's the blending that also achieves that,
08:01that we can get to the 40N level consistently.
08:05So that's the art piece.
08:07It's like harmonizing everything together.
08:29So we bottle our fish sauce in Hayward, California.
08:35Our product is mainly for export, over 95% for export.
08:45I started my life on the boat.
08:47I left the country 45 years ago.
08:51As an immigrant, refugee, it's so hard.
08:55You know, being on the ocean for so long with a small fishing boat.
09:09So I was involved with the tech industry for like 30 years,
09:12and over 20 years with Apple.
09:14One day, I have an assignment in Asia, came to Vietnam,
09:19and I said, Mom, I got some fish sauce for you, and try it.
09:23When I gave her, and she smelled it, and she tasted it, and she almost cried.
09:28She said, oh, yeah.
09:37When I see my mom's reaction, I say, you know,
09:40is it that much that she's been holding and not telling us?
09:45Like, oh, where is this kind of fish sauce?
09:49After the war ended, the trade embargo, so nothing from Vietnam came out to the U.S.,
09:55so everybody had to get stuff through Thailand.
09:57And so I said, okay, how food court fish sauce,
10:00it's been made 100 years ago, we're going to do like that.
10:12Today, what I'm going to do is basically a pretty bird version style of Nashville hot chicken.
10:17We're going to be serving a Vietnamese red boat sweet chili sauce
10:20that we're going to add as a glaze to the chicken.
10:23So we have some marinated chicken wings.
10:25What I do is just grab black pepper.
10:27We actually add a little bit of salt to that, and a little bit of sugar.
10:30And then with that, we add a little bit of red boat fish sauce here.
10:35Fish sauce could fit in almost any type of cooking.
10:38Basically, it's umami in a bottle.
10:42What you want to do is kind of massage that mixture into the chicken.
10:45We'll dredge it in some flour.
10:48You know, growing up as a first-generation Vietnamese,
10:52there wasn't anything that I wanted more than to be American.
10:55So when it came to Vietnamese food, I didn't really care very much for it.
10:59As you progress in your career, you start to look for meaningful things
11:04that really give your food a sense of identity.
11:07I came across red boat, so I'm like, ah, fish sauce.
11:10This is what my mom always used, and she's always told me that
11:13if your dishes are ever missing anything,
11:16you just add a little bit of fish sauce, and it makes the dish better.
11:20And then we'll let that fry for about 8 to 10 minutes.
11:24Every culture seems to have a version of fried chicken,
11:27but what I love about it is that there is literally
11:29zero pretentiousness that comes with fried chicken.
11:32In the industry, this is what we call GVD.
11:34It's golden brown and delicious, and that's what you want.
11:37That's what you're looking for.
11:38We're going to make a play on like a sweet chili sauce.
11:41This is fresh palm sugar from Cambodia.
11:43I have some vinegar, and then I'll add a couple spoonfuls of the sweet chili,
11:48and then we're going to add a fairly good amount of fish sauce.
11:52You want that salty, you want that sweet flavor from the palm sugar,
11:56and then that acidity that you get from the vinegar really helps balance it all out.
12:01And once that simmers and reduces, we'll use that as a glaze for the chicken.
12:05So this is our pretty bird spice.
12:07You know, a variety of chilies, peppers, and a little bit of sugar
12:10that really helps balance everything out.
12:12So we want to make sure that the spice is nicely, evenly coated.
12:15And then last but not least, sweet chili sauce.
12:18We're going to actually spoon this over the chicken.
12:20One of the things that I really love about Vietnamese cuisine
12:24is that its use of lots of fresh herbs.
12:27That is a Nashville-style hot chicken
12:33with a Vietnamese fish sauce, sweet chili sauce.
12:40Through my craft, being a cook,
12:42little did I know that that path was going to take me full circle.
12:46It's because of a very simple condiment.
12:49It really brings me home, and it reminds me of my mom, my dad, all in one perfect bite.
12:56I'm like literally tearing up.
12:58Something as simple as a condiment brings you full circle back to rediscovering who you are.
13:03If it wasn't for something like Red Boat Fish Sauce,
13:06I don't know where I would be as a chef.
13:10People ask me, why would you do fish sauce?
13:12I didn't know what I get into.
13:14I grew up with this fish sauce, and I didn't know how significant it was.
13:21When I was in elementary, it's a boarding school.
13:24My mom gave me the little bottle.
13:26I said, if the food is not good, use it, and everything's good.
13:32So, it means a lot to me.
13:37You know, the more you get into it, and you stumble into different challenges.
13:42And I love challenges, man.
13:44I love that because all my life when I work in the high tech,
13:48give me the problem, I solve it for you.
13:50And then the kids get involved.
13:52Tracy get involved.
13:53Tiffany get involved.
13:55Kevin, my wife, of course, is involved from the beginning.
13:58But so the family is actually hold it all together.
14:05Without the passion, you cannot sustain all the work in here.
14:10They see the purpose why we're doing this.
14:13So, we're very appreciative of all the work.
14:15We're just fortunate to grow up with this, and we remember it.
14:19So, we cannot let it be forgotten.