Should You Add Fish Sauce To Your Chicken Pakoda Batter?

Unconventional cooking hacks can often lead you to the greatest recipes. The fish sauce in chicken fries or pakoda hack is something akin to that. If you're unfamiliar with fish sauce, note that it's a dark brown condiment that's usually made from fermented fish, usually anchovies. Its savoury flavour differs from the profile of soy or tamari because it's accented with a hint of briny sweetness. 

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This hack can be used in both wet batters, dry batters or marinades where you coat the chicken in ginger-garlic paste, white pepper, soy sauce and red chilli powder. Instead of adding fish sauce to the batter, you can also go for a fish sauce glaze which many chefs recommend. Simply heat up the sauce along with sugar, lime, and water and simmer on low heat. 

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Chef and author Andy Ricker who wrote the acclaimed cookbook Pok Pok: Food and Stories from the Streets, Homes, and Roadside Restaurants of Thailand, popularised this hack with his Vietnamese fish sauce wings recipe which was a signature at his Portland restaurant Pok Pok. 

"I think what makes them so addictive is that they hit more pleasure points on the human palate; they're salty, sweet, umami-rich, we call them umami bombs," Richter had shared about his recipe. If you're using the hack for making chicken tenders, or Indian chicken pakoda, it's ideal to settle for a basic marinade made of sugar, salt, garlic, salt and pepper, rather than a thick batter. 

It's important to remember that fish sauce is made from anchovies which have a pretty strong flavour and pair well with garlic, which also balances out its scent. So, a basic garlicky marinade should do the trick on chicken pakodas. In a bowl, whisk the fish sauce, sugar, salt, pepper and crushed garlic. Add the chicken pieces and toss them to coat them properly. freeze them for two hours to let the flavours seep in and fry them like you normally would.