Alex Hanesakda's Spicy Lao Dipping Sauce

Recipes

Spicy Lao Dipping Sauce

By Alex Hanesakda

Alex Hanesakda’s cooking is informed by his culture and also by his own history. Every meal during his formative years was served with jeow som, a bright, sour-tangy and spicy dipping sauce. For guests joining the Hanesakdas, it was that sauce that wowed them. Say they were serving meat and sticky rice. That sauce was the thing they dipped them in. With ingredients like fish sauce, chiles and garlic, jeow som has all the hallmarks of Southeast Asian cuisine, says Hanesakda. “Something so simple and so delicious and just goes well with everything.”

Ingredients

Yields 2 Quarts

1 pound individually quick frozen (IQF) bird’s eye chiles

25 grams Thai dried chile

300 grams garlic

1 bottle of fish sauce

1,022 grams of lime juice

400 grams sugar

50 grams of cilantro stems

Instructions

Add all ingredients to a medium-sized bowl. Use an immersion blender to mix until finely minced. Store in the refrigerator. Can also be frozen.

Bio

Growing up in Burlington, Wisconsin, Alex Hanesakda says his earliest memories are of helping his parents prepare meals, whether that meant working in the vegetable garden or processing animal meat in the backyard. Hanesakda’s interest in food began to evolve when he was in his 20s and he took a job at Hometown Sausage Kitchen in East Troy to learn artisan sausage-making. In time, he was doing farm dinners and pop-ups, serving his Lao-style barbecue and Mamma’s Egg Rolls under the name SapSap. Inspired by the barbecues his father used to do, Hanesakda has transitioned to serving Lao barbecue (“simple proteins and sauces with sticky rice”) at pop-ups, private events and catering.

Alex Hanesakda

SapSap

Alex Hanesakda

SapSap

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