Cook Like a Local: Six Ingredients That Can Change How You Cook - and See the World by Chris Shepherd and Kaitlyn Goalen

  • Vietnamese dipping sauce (Nước chấm) (page 24)

    from Cook Like a Local: Six Ingredients That Can Change How You Cook - and See the World Cook Like a Local by Chris Shepherd and Kaitlyn Goalen

    • Categories: Dips, spreads & salsas; Sauces, general; Vietnamese
    • Ingredients: distilled white vinegar; sugar; fish sauce; garlic; sambal oelek; limes
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Notes about this book

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Notes about Recipes in this book

  • Grilled chả lụa with green mango salad, nước chấm, and pork floss

    • mirage on June 24, 2024

      Excellent hot weather meal!

  • Fried egg bánh mì

    • SheilaS on July 30, 2020

      Surely the messiest bánh mì I've eaten! I used Andrea Nguyen's recipe for the rolls (I put a link to it in the comments) and to pickle carrots and daikon. The fish sauce-mayo makes a great alternative to the usual Maggi seasoning.

    • southerncooker on August 03, 2020

      This sure was a messy sandwich but so delicious. Easy to just make one and I'll definitely be making again. I'm also going to try his suggestion of adding some fish sauce mayonnaise to tuna salad soon.

  • Chile Tater Tot casserole

    • SheilaS on July 30, 2020

      I've made the cheese sauce with heavy cream and also with evaporated milk. The evap milk was just as good and reheated more easily without breaking. It's a great sauce!

    • MollyB on July 01, 2021

      Great dish! I used a scant amount of the spicier ingredients to make it more child-friendly, but it would have been fine with the full amount. My 10-yr-old loved it and didn't even mention spiciness. I think the cheese and cream temper the heat. We'll definitely be making it again!

    • southerncooker on July 27, 2020

      We really enjoyed this. I made a half recipe for hubby, son and I. My Poblano and or my pickled jalapenos must have been spicy because this had a bite to it but still delicious.

    • jenmacgregor18 on November 07, 2019

      I made 1/2 batch. This is very rich - but great comfort food. It wasn't as hot as I was worried it may be. I added additional crystal sauce to mine both for the vinegar and a bit more heat. My cheese was a bit grainy looking when reheated. That, however, didn't slow me down.

    • Lsblackburn1 on November 29, 2020

      This was an excellent way to use up the last of the turkey! Really delicious - and since my bag of tater tots was only 28 oz., the addition of the meat worked great with the amount of cheese sauce.

    • Nkrieda78 on July 08, 2020

      I cooked the tots separately to keep crispy and treated it all like nachos!

  • UB Preserv pickles

    • MollyB on July 01, 2021

      Good, basic quick pickle. We did the red onion variation, and liked it a lot.

  • Lamburger helper

    • southerncooker on July 29, 2020

      Made a half recipe. Son and I love lamb and this was delicious. I did use Chipotle chili powder since I was out of Ancho. I forgot to half the eztra cheese that's stirred into the meat and cheese sauce mixtures, along with the pasta. But in this family there's no such thing as too much cheese.

  • Charred shishito peppers, corn and soy

    • southerncooker on August 05, 2020

      I made a recipe and a half for three of us. Delicious. I got my shishito peppers from a local farm.

  • Indian "puffy tacos"

    • raybun on March 30, 2020

      Another fantastic recipe from this book, labour intensive but worth every minute. The tomato chutney and masala are excellent. I used corn tortillas as I couldn’t get puri shells.

  • Masala chicken wings

    • raybun on March 30, 2020

      The marinade with Aunties Masala is incredible, I’ll be using it for kebabs this summer. Had to use legs instead of wings and forego the raita (no yogurt!). Excellent flavours.

  • Orange peel beef

    • bwhip on December 03, 2019

      Very delicious dish. We really enjoyed this one. Quite easy to prep, just needs 24 hours to marinate. Excellent flavor, nicely spicy even though we removed the dried peppers before cooking. We served with brown rice.

  • Noi's Thai fried rice balls with cucumber salad

    • Kduncan on August 02, 2021

      These take a while to make, the amount of grating/chopping of ginger/garlic was intense, and as first poster said do fall apart a bit when frying (about half of ours did). Though, again as the first poster said the flavor is really good, don't know with all the work I'd do again though.

    • Samallyn6 on August 22, 2020

      The flavor was great, but unfortunately, mine fell apart in the frying pan.

  • Chocolate chile champurrado

    • montecristo99 on September 15, 2019

      Very good. Warm and comforting, especially on a cold day. Quick to make and easily adjustable for more or less sweetness and spice.

  • Houston pulled pork and grits

    • montecristo99 on November 05, 2020

      This was fantastic. Relatively little prep work or hands-on time for a huge payout at the end. And as noted in the recipe, it made the whole house smell good. Next time I'll keep a closer eye on the sauce reduction--20 minutes was a little too long, so we ended up with a lot of concentrated salt from the fish sauce. That said, this is a winner we'll be making again soon.

  • Sichuan BLT

    • pattyatbryce on January 09, 2021

      Love this - super easy and great flavor! I rare recipe that I made twice in the same month. Note: I did add some extra gochujang for some more spice the second time.

  • Sweet soy-glazed BBQ chicken

    • patioweather on July 12, 2020

      To quote my friend, "that chicken is f**king bangin'!" Gotta remember to start cooking early though. We are used to grilling things that grill up fast like hot dogs, and this takes a little longer.

  • Vietnamese fajitas

    • patioweather on July 17, 2020

      These are basically spring rolls with meat, but they are great. Preparation was easy, although searing the meat created a lot of smoke. The one thing this recipe lacks is avocado. You really need to add avocado.

  • Louisiana seafood rice casserole

    • patioweather on July 02, 2020

      Decadent. Definitely not a weeknight meal.

  • Stacked cheese enchiladas with butternut chile sauce

    • patioweather on July 20, 2020

      This was phenomenal. It was a bit of work because I was starting from a huge, unpeeled butternut, but with the pre-diced butternut, it would be a snap.

    • Lsblackburn1 on November 22, 2020

      Excellent flavors! I did dip the tortillas in oil because that’s what I usually do for enchiladas, but everything else was made as written.

  • Bibb lettuce salad with grapefruit, carrots and fish sauce vinaigrette

    • patioweather on December 30, 2020

      This was just alright for me. I am not sure the egg adds enough to take the risk of eating a raw egg.

  • Crispy Brussels sprouts with caramelized fish sauce

    • patioweather on March 29, 2020

      Next time I would add more sugar.

  • Vietnamese steak and eggs

    • Mtetpon on July 22, 2020

      I did make mine as a sandwich and added in some cilantro. The marinade on the meat is fantastic.

  • Korean-style sloppy Joes

    • Lsblackburn1 on July 29, 2020

      These were very well-received at an outdoor socially-distanced dinner! They had a subtle heat from the gochujang, but it wasn’t too much. The recipe says to make this in an 8 quart Dutch oven, which I do not have... fortunately everything just fit in my smaller cocotte and it came out just right.

    • kkmatti on October 28, 2023

      These were good but a little on the sweet side. I think the sweetness of the gochujang is a little overpowering here.

  • Korean pasta salad

    • Lsblackburn1 on February 28, 2021

      This was a hit with the family! Made it as written - might consider upping the pineapple if I made it again. Used the extra Mayo for the fish cakes and that was a great combination.

  • Cantaloupe-habanero gazpacho

  • Grilled shrimp soba noodle salad

    • dea080020 on August 15, 2021

      Uninspiring - I did definitely prefer homeemade yuzu over store bought though.

  • Yakamein

    • sbackman on July 30, 2024

      I’ve never had Yakamein before so I don’t have any reference to what it should taste like but this recipe was awful. The sauce was so strong that after two hours of cooking I started straining it out and replacing with water until I had replaced 3/4 of the sauce. That still didn’t help the recipe. Looking at other recipes, most use the same ingredients more or less, but this recipe used 5 times the ingredients of other recipes. The pickled eggs were good however. This is the first time cooking from this book and wanted so much to like it. Hopefully I’ll find a better recipe next time.

  • Eggplant with spicy bean paste

    • Samallyn6 on August 22, 2020

      This tastes exactly like the eggplant we used to get at a popular asian-fusion restaurant - back when we actually ate at restaurants. Really nice asian-style eggplant dish. Lots of caramelized flavor, eggplant is silky and delicious.

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Reviews about this book

  • Kitchn by Chandra Ram

    His enthusiasm for the flavors and culture immigrants have brought to America is unmatched, and I can’t wait to see how it’s inspired him as a chef.

    Full review
  • ISBN 10 1524761265
  • ISBN 13 9781524761264
  • Linked ISBNs
  • Published Sep 03 2019
  • Format Hardcover
  • Page Count 272
  • Language English
  • Countries United States
  • Publisher Clarkson Potter

Publishers Text

Chris Shepherd, James Beard Award-winning chef of Houston's Underbelly, is a champion of that city's incredibly diverse immigrant cuisines. In his restaurant, he calls out the names of the cooks--Vietnamese, Korean, Indian, and others--who have inspired him, and in his book, he teaches you how to work with those flavors and cultures with respect and creativity.

Houston's culinary reputation as a steakhouse town was put to rest by Chris Shepherd. A cook with insatiable curiosity, he's trained not just in fine-dining restaurants but in Houston's Korean grocery stores, Vietnamese noodle shops, Indian kitchens, and Chinese mom-and-pops. His food, incorporating elements of all these cuisines, tells the story of the city, and country, in which he lives. An advocate, not an appropriator, he asks his diners to go and visit the restaurants that have inspired him, and in this book he brings us along to meet, learn from, and cook with the people who have taught him.

The recipes include signatures from his restaurant--favorites such as braised goat with Korean rice dumplings, or fried vegetables with caramelized fish sauce. The lessons go deeper than recipes: the book is about how to understand the pantries of different cuisines, how to taste and use these flavors in your own cooking. Organized around key ingredients like soy, dry spices, or chiles, the chapters function as master classes in using these seasonings to bring new flavors into your cooking and new life to flavors you already knew. But even beyond flavors and techniques, the book is about a bigger story: how Chris, a son of Oklahoma who looks like a football coach, came to be "adopted" by these immigrant cooks and families, how he learned to connect and share and truly cross cultures with a sense of generosity and respect, and how we can all learn to make not just better cooking, but a better community, one meal at a time.

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