More on Liquamen - Oh Wow!

Last May I wrote about my experiments with the Roman condiment called "liquamen."  You can read about it here:  Liquamen.  I was working from the book Cooking Apicius by Sally Grainger.

I didn't make it from fermented fish but used a more convenient recipe involving reduced grape juice and premade fish sauce.  My taste test showed that the best ratio of juice to fish sauce was 7 to 1.

Well, that turns out to be a good ratio if you are tasting the sauce from a spoon.  When it comes to using it as a base for a sauce, Ms. Grainger's recommendation of 3 to 1 is much, much better.

I have been experimenting with using the liquamen as a base for a variety of uses.  My favorite so far is as a steak sauce.  Another good use is as a dressing for steamed green beans.

Liquamen in a Sauce

Reduced grape juice and a purchased fish sauce or liquamen made from fermented fish
Olive oil
White wine vinegar
Salt
Pepper

For the steak sauce, I used

6 tablespoons grape juice
2 tablespoons fish sauce
1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
1/4 teaspoon ground pepper (or to taste)
1/8 teaspoon salt (or to taste)

Mix well in a bowl and serve with a ladle so your guests can pour on the amount they want.

For the green beans dressing, I used

3 tablespoons grape juice
1 tablespoon fish sauce
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/4 teaspoon ground pepper (or to taste)
1/8 teaspoon salt (or to taste)

Mix well in a bowl and then pour over the hot, steamed green beans.  Toss to coat.  Good to toss them again before serving.

Very peppery

The Verdict

The steak sauce is very thin and runny.  I liked it poured over the steak, using enough to have the sauce make a puddle around the meat.  It is amazingly tasty and inspires the eater to want more!

In analyzing the flavors, I would say it touches all five of the tastes our tongues can sense.  It is salty, it is sour from the vinegar, it is sweet from the grape juice, it is bitter from the pepper, and the fish sauce makes it richly umami.

I wondered if the spices I used on the steak influenced my interpretation of the sauce.  Probably they do as I use a salt-free blend with black pepper, garlic, onion, brown mustard seeds, lemon peel, chile pepper, allspice, coriander, marjoram, and oregano.  Hey, I use this blend because it tastes good on the steak!  But the steak is even better with the sauce.

One of my guest tasters smoked a tri-tip and tried my sauce on it.  He said he couldn't get enough of the sauce once he started putting it on the beef.  He was surprised at its flavor because he expected it to taste fishy and it didn't.  He was also surprised at the pleasant sweetness.

And the wine!

The dressing stuck to the green beans because of the olive oil.  I liked the stronger pepper flavor and the other tastes, most of which were like the steak sauce.  I think the dressing might be even better with some vinegar in it, like an oil-and-vinegar dressing.

These mixtures are so much of a success that, once the meat and beans were eaten, we cleaned up the rest of the sauce on our plates with the pesto crescent rolls.  A simple and yet very tasty meal.

I have the ingredients to make more liquamen, so I will post updates if I find any other uses.