This delicious, sweet and spicy Vietnamese dipping sauce is the perfect accompaniment to Vietnamese rice paper rolls or any Asian-style finger food.

1 tablespoon sugar

2 tablespoons water

1 clove garlic—minced (crushed)

1 small red chili—deseeded and finely chopped

2 tablespoons lemon juice

2 tablespoons fish sauce

2 tablespoons rice vinegar

MIX together the sugar and water in a small bowl until dissolved. STIR in the remaining ingredients until well combined.

Tip: In this nuoc cham recipe we have purposely made the sauce milder, heat-wise, by finely chopping the chili. Traditionally the chili and other ingredients are ground with a mortar and pestle, which makes the sauce hotter. Feel free to do this if you like, or you can process all the ingredients in a blender (however this tends to make the nuoc cham go frothy).

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