Nuoc cham (vietnamese chili sauce for dipping)

2    Dried red chilies
      2    Cloves garlic
    1/2 ts Sugar
      2 tb Fish sauce
      1 tb Vinegar
      1 tb Lemon juice
 
  The red stuff can be had in stores.  It comes in a clear plastic
  bottle with a green lid and a red rooster on the plastic.  Or in
  smaller glass jars.  It's called "Tuong ot toi Viet Nam" (tung ot
  toy) and is nothing more than red chiles mashed up with a bit of
  garlic.  You could easily make it by smashing up a handful of the
  little red hot peppers and a couple of cloves of garlic in a mortar
  and pestle.  There's a similar Filipino sauce called "Sambal
  Oeleck"++virtually the same but with the addition of vinegar. Here's
  my favorite recipe for nuoc cham. I have some variants if you'd like
  to see those too.  I use it on a lot of stuff++it's very good with
  poached or white cooked chicken, thousand year eggs, shrimp chips.
  
  Mince chilies and garlic finely and place in a mortar.  Mash with the
  heel of a cleaver or pestle.  Add sugar and stir until it dissolves.
  Add fish sauce, vinegar and lemon juice, stirring between each
  addition. This makes enough for 2 to 4 people.  I almost always
  double the recipe just to make sure there's enough.  I've kept it for
  long periods of time but unless you freeze it, it's past it's prime
  after a few days.
  
  From "Great Asia Steambook" by Irene Wong.  Published by Taylor and
  Ng, distributed by Random House.  1977.  ISBN 0-912738-11-1.
  
  This is a basic chili sauce used for a dip for chicken or whatever.
  Variations of this are found in Cambodia, Thailand and other Southeast
  Asian countries. You can fiddle with it endlessly.  This is a good
  starting point. The proportions shown here produce what I consider a
  mildly warm dip. I generally use two to six times as many chilies,
  depending on their strength and how hot I want it.
  
  VARIATIONS:  Use green serrano chilies instead of dried red ones,
  thinly slice a red or green chili into rounds and toss them in, lime
  juice instead of the lemon juice or palm sugar instead of granulated.
  If you make it in a food processor, don't over process.  It should
  have small chunks of each ingredient rather than being a homogeneous
  liquid. The taste is sour and hot, very puckery.  It's great with
  poached or steamed chicken, duck or game hens.  Much better with
  basically bland dishes rather than something like curry which has
  it's own blend of spices. Good with Chinese white-cut chicken or
  Steamed Ginger chicken with Black Bean sauce. It's truly addictive
  and I often serve it with meals that are not Oriental in origin.
  Should be good with a firm- fleshed white fish or boiled shrimp or
  crab. Fish sauce is a liquid made with anchovies and salt. It's not
  really fishy tasting.  Look for it in the oriental section of
  supermarkets or at markets catering to Asian clientele.  Tiparos is a
  good brand made in the Philippines.  I prefer Thai or Vietnamese fish
  sauce, but they'll probably be harder to find. A timesaver is to
  combine large quantities of the liquid ingredients and store them in
  the fridge. Then, when you want some Nuoc Cham, just chop up the
  chilies and garlic, pound them with the sugar and add them to the
  liquid.
  
  Posted by Stephen Ceideburg; March 7 1991.