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Nuoc Cham

"This sauce can be used for dipping veggies, meats, or egg rolls. It's also great spooned over a bowl of steaming hot pho or other rice noodle soup. For me this sauce IS the flavor of Vietnamese cooking. Enjoy! This can be stored in the fridge for up to two weeks."

By allrecipes · From Open Recipes · 7 ingredients
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Nuoc Cham

Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Nuoc Cham

10 servings
Prep5 min
Cook5 min

Ingredients

Directions

Step-by-step directions aren't available for this recipe. See the full recipe at the source →

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

83Calories
2 gProtein
0 gFat
20 gCarbs

Counts 6 of 7 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 6 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Soy Sauce1 tbsp (15ml)9
Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Garlic1 clove (3g)4
Vinegar1 tbsp (15ml) distilled3
Waternot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By allrecipes. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Pepper + garlictop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,090 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Garlic + lemontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,893 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Clove + garlictop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,368 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Swap the garlic

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, clove, fish sauce, rice, vinegar, sugar, lemon):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Garlicthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, clove, fish sauce, rice, vinegar, sugar, lemon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.