Red Boat’s Newest Product: Kho Sauce
The maker of artisan fish sauce, Red Boat, just debuted its newest product, Kho Sauce.
This flavorful bottled sauce, of which I received a sample recently, is designed to make braising a breeze.
Based on Red Boat Founder Cuong Pham’s family recipe, the sauce is a savory blend of the signature fish sauce (fermented with only anchovies and salt in the time-honored way), plus ginger, shallots, green onions, black pepper, crushed red pepper, and organic coconut sugar.
It’s briny, sweet, peppery, and a little spicy. It’s also gluten-free.
Just add 1/3 cup or more of the sauce (and a splash of water — or not) to a pan to braise tofu, fish, shrimp, chicken or pork until tender. Depending on how long you let the pot simmer, the sauce will reduce and thicken, and even form a glaze.
I tried it on cubes of pork with Japanese turnips to create an easy, complex tasting stew to spoon over rice. Red Boat also includes a few recipes on its web site, in case you need a little more guidance.
An 11.8-ounce bottle is $8.95 on the Red Boat site. It makes for a no-fuss way to inject Vietnamese flavors into everyday cooking.
What a fun product! I love to braise, so I can see quite a few uses for this. Haven’t used Red Boat fish sauce, and I can see I need to make its acquaintance as well as this new offering. Thanks!
Hi John: The Red Boat fish sauce is beloved by chefs. It’s great stuff!
I keep seeing more and more people taking about Red Boat, I’ll have to see if our market carries it. The pork and turnip stew that you mentioned sounds like it would really be good.
Hi Karen: It’s great stuff! If you have a Whole Foods in your area, it likely will carry Red Boat fish sauce.
I just bought a bottle at Trader Joe’s for $4.99. I can’t wait to give it a try.
Hi Potato Bug: It’s delicious stuff. Enjoy! 😉
Kho Sauce is delis, but it is discontinued at Trader Joe’s.
After hours if Internet searching I have discovered that Red Boat changed the name to ”Simmer Sauce”.
Why wouldn’t Red Boat inform people in their webpage? They still have recipes referencing Kho sauce. Would be simple to tell people that it’s simply been renamed.
Hi Pt: Yes, it appears Red Boat discontinued the Kho Sauce. The Vietnamese Simmer Sauce, which is new, is a bit similar to that but not exactly the same. Thanks for letting me know about the product not being available any longer.