Originally John was going to pan sear the cod and I was going to make some sort of vegetation. I don’t know, maybe I was planning on doing a sheet pan veg but I made that veg yesterday and our lackluster fish needed something more exciting. Hmm, I have a mango and a Fresno chile, what can I do with that?

Voila! Vietnamese mango salsa!! It is a combination of corn, scallions, Fresno chile, and mango in a Vietnamese nuoc cham sauce. It was great! There was sweetness from mango and corn, spiciness from chile and scallion and the salty umami bomb from the nuoc cham. Here is my lo-cal recipe for this sauce.

Nuoc cham. (Light version)

• 1/3 cup water
• 1 packet Splenda
• Juice of one lime (1/2 cup)
• 1/4 cup fish sauce
• 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1 small spicy chile, sliced
• 6 drop sesame oil
• 1/4 teaspoon soy sauce

Whisk all ingredient together. This recipe is just something I made up so you really need to taste it as you go along. It might need more lime juice depending on the lime, or maybe more sweetener if you like things really sweet (I don’t). Fish sauce is very intense so maybe start out with a tablespoon and work your way up to an acceptable fish sauce level for you. I actually do not know how much sesame oil I put in, once again the sesame oil is up to you. At the end I correct how it tastes with a little soy sauce. Start with a quarter teaspoon.

As it turns out we took a mediocre fish and turned it into a yummy dinner by making an inventive salsa.