Nuoc Cham

Dallas and I really like going to this Vietnamese place called Gossip down by his work every now and then.  It's so good, because of this lovely little bowl of orange colored sauce they bring you to pour or spread over everything.  We looked up this sauce last night, and made it for ourselves.  We made it a little too hot, I won't be doing that next time.  But here's what our dinner ended up looking like:

Here is the recipe that we used, although we(Dallas) forgot to seed the peppers we got...thus very spicy!
Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup warm water
• 1/4 cup fish sauce (Viet Huong Three Crabs brand)
• 1/4 cup white vinegar
• 1/2 of a lime, juiced
• 3-4 cloves of garlic , minced
• 2-3 Thai chili pepper, minced
• I also added a little bit of rice vinegar

Directions:
1) In a small sealable jar, combine water and sugar and stir to dissolve the sugar. Add fish sauce, vinegar and lime juice and mix. Adjust flavors to taste.
2) Add garlic and chili pepper.  Let it sit for about 15 minutes before serving. The sauce can be stored at room temperature, if served the same day. Otherwise, store it in the refrigerator.
Makes about 1 1/2 cups