Nam Jim Jaew
The same record, read as a method. This page holds the reasoning; that one holds what to do.
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Study
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Nam Jim Jaew
A dipping sauce for grilled meat. It is a wet relish, not a pourable sauce. You drag the meat through it. Two chillies do two jobs. Toasted dried chilli gives roasted depth. Sliced fresh bird's eye chilli gives a sharp, immediate heat on top. Toasted glutinous rice, pounded coarse, takes up the free liquid and holds it against the meat. Fish sauce gives the salt. Lime gives the acid. A small amount of palm sugar rounds the edges. This is the doubled batch. The first batch was half this size and ran out on one bird.
Mechanisms
twoM1
Two chilli forms, two jobs dried chilli toasted dark red fresh chilli sliced raw
Dried chilli and fresh chilli are not the same ingredient in this sauce.
Dry-toasting browns the sugars and proteins in the dried pericarp. This is the Maillard reaction. It makes pyrazines, which taste roasted. Capsaicin is stable at this heat, so toasting does not remove the heat. It adds the roast on top.
Fresh bird's eye chilli carries volatile green compounds and water. Its heat arrives at once and is sharp.
The sauce needs both. The dried chilli gives the depth. The fresh chilli gives the top.
M2
The sauce loosens after it rests 5 min rest taste after the rest serve within 1 h
Salt and acid pull water out of the cut shallot. This is osmosis. The shallot softens and the sauce gains liquid.
At the same time the toasted rice takes liquid up.
The two effects settle after about 5 minutes. A sauce that looks dry at once is often correct after the rest. Taste it after the rest, not before.
Do not make it more than about one hour ahead. The aroma of lime juice degrades within the hour, and the herbs wilt.
The method
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