Leeks with Fava Beans - a Roman Empire recipe

Sometimes parts of the universe come together in surprising ways.  Or, if you remember the 1970s at all, perhaps a bunch of biorhythms all aligned!

I have wanted a particular cookbook ever since I saw it at a culinary symposium.  It has translations of the Roman Empire recipes of Apicius along with modern redactions by the author.

ISBN 0-226-29030-1

So when I was wandering through a favorite used bookstore one day and saw it, I knew it would be coming home with me.

A few days later my friend, RK, gave me a box of ramps (wild leeks) from his home in West Virginia.

This is a small portion of what he shared with me.

And then another friend, MD, offered me some fresh fava beans from his garden.

The picture doesn't show it, but these pods are huge!

Well, when the universe sends such a clear message, I cannot ignore it.  On page 151, I found a recipe that uses both.

Leeks with Fava Beans  (Apicius 96)

Aliter porros:  [Si] in aquam elixati erunt, fabae nondum conditae plurimum admisce conditurae in qua eos manducaturus es.

Another recipe for leeks:  [If] they have been boiled in water, add a large quantity of unseasoned fava beans to the condiment in which you will eat them.

Author's redaction:

Boil the leeks in water, drain, and place in a serving bowl.  Season them with the sauce described in the previous recipe, and add cooked or raw fava beans.  You can also add fresh minced aromatic herbs if you wish.

The "sauce described in the previous recipe" is from Boiled Leek Salad, Apicius 93. 

Boil the leeks, slice them into rounds, and cover with a sauce made of olive oil, garum, and wine.  The quantities of the ingredients may vary according to taste; if you like the strong, salty flavor of garum, feel free to use it generously.  I find red wine is more successful here than white.

Homemade liquamen!

Garum is fish sauce, also often called liquamen.  I happen to have a great quantity of it from my previous experiments in making it.  Click here to see a post on it.

My Redaction

320 grams (11 ounces) of shelled fava beans

150 grams (5 1/2 ounces) of ramps, washed and trimmed of their roots

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup red wine (I chose pinot noir)

1 teaspoon olive oil

1 1/2 teaspoon liquamen

Add the beans to boiling water, bring the water back to a boil and cook until tender, about 3-4 minutes.  Drain and set aside.

Slice the ramps into pieces, add to salted, boiling water, and cook for 2 - 3 minutes.  Drain and add to the beans.

Mix the dressing, beating well to disburse the oil.  Pour over the ramps and fava beans -- put in what you think is right as you might not use all of it.  Toss well and serve.

This was about four servings.

My Notes

It was fun to shell the fava beans.  The pods' inner lining is white and fluffy, and it seemed like I was taking the beans out from their cozy little nest.  I used about half of the pods you see in the picture to get these beans.

I boiled them in plain water.

I really like this picture.

The ramps cleaned up well and were sliced into big bite-sized pieces.

After they were boiled in salted water, they were drained and mixed with the fava beans.

Then I whisked the sauce ingredients together, poured them over the veggies, mixed them well, and served them.

The Verdict

I served them as part of a simple yet tasty dinner.  The protein portion was pork that I had cured and smoked.  This was sliced paper thin (hooray for my new electric knife sharpener!) and dressed with a drizzle of lemon juice and some capers.

I also set out some homemade oatmeal bread, recipe courtesy of my friend GW.  I served the meal with the same pinot noir that I used in the dressing.

The fava beans and ramps combination was good.  I won't say "exceptional" or "outstanding" because I think I could have improved on my process.  

First, I tasted one bean for doneness before draining them.  The could have cooked a minute or two longer to get the bigger beans more tender.  Some were chewy and I didn't like that.  This convinced me that I would not use raw beans in this dish.  I cooked them for 3 minutes, which is why I put 3 to 4 minutes in my redaction.

Second, the dressing did not stick to the veggies.  Maybe I'm spoiled with today's availability of thickened sauces but I did wish to taste more of the dressing with a bite of the veggies.  I suspect I should have had the dressing ready to go when the veggies were all still hot.  I've noticed that some veggies absorb the flavors better when that happens.  I don't know for sure, but I would do that when making it again.

Third, both my guest taster and I thought it needed more salt.  Instead of making the dish saltier by using more fish sauce, we sprinkled a little salt over what was on our plates.  That worked out well.

Fourth, maybe the ramps would have had more flavor if they were only cooked 2 minutes.  They were good, and they weren't as potent as they are when raw, but I would have liked more of their rampy flavor.

The combination of hearty bread, cured meat, and ramps/fava beans was a good one.  It made for a solid and flavorful dinner, and we both enjoyed it very much.  

I thought the amount of liquamen in the dressing was just right.  It shifted the wine flavor to something different (liquamen adds salt and a good dose of umami).  The important part was that it didn't taste or smell fishy, a preference of my guest taster.  The olive oil added a good mouthfeel, too.

If I make this again (and I still have ramps and favas left over!), I would try it with some fresh herbs.  I guess that mint would be a good addition, and maybe some parsley or basil.  My explorations in historical cooking have taught me to really mix it up when using fresh herbs.  Don't be tied down to "traditional" uses or combinations!  Many go well together in surprising ways.

Success!

The "Making Do" Challenge -- Sausages, part 3

I'm in the midst of making sausage from a chunk of pork cushion meat, using the ingredients I have around the house.  This is part three; to see yesterday's post:  Click here.


Today I tried full-sized patties of each blend, to see how they turned out after having a day in the refrigerator for the flavors to blend.

Blend #1

As I feared, it was too salty.  Even my salt-loving guest taster agreed, and that says a lot.  I hadn't considered the impact of the salt in the liquamen when I was measuring the straight salt at the beginning.

To adjust this, I cut up more pork chunks and included seasoning and added it to Blend #1.  Here's what I used:

     2 lb 6 oz meat
     3 g pepper
     3 g mace
     15 g fresh parsley
     1/2 cup cold water

Note that I did not include any salt and I was out of dried apple.  The nice thing about the parsley was that it showed me how well I had mixed the new part in with the old.  It wasn't well blended until the parsley was distributed throughout.

This worked out so well.  The new blend had just the right amount of salt and a bright, slightly spicy flavor.  We enjoyed it with fried eggs at breakfast.

Blend #2

Well, the recommendations to mix garlic in to make sausage was spot on!  The garlic flavor was strong but not so much to put us off.  We truly enjoyed it as a patty along with a salad and crackers.  The salt balance was right and it was moist and flavorful.

Blend #3

This was the mix where I decided to increase the flavor ingredients to really make an impact, and boy, did it work.  My guest taster declared it "A keeper!" and I agreed.  I couldn't really taste the apple but imagined it added a bit of sweetness.  The rest of the flavors were bold in a pleasant way and the salt level (from just the liquamen) was just right.

And now for a bonus!

When I chunked up the rest of the cushion meat to adjust Blend #1, I had enough left over to try another blend.  I kept recalling a conversation I had with an Egyptian friend,  AF, when we discovered we were both foodies who liked to cook.  He told me his favorite spice combination on meat used cardamom, pepper, and cinnamon.  This caught my imagination and inspired me to try it with the fourth sausage flavor blend.

Blend #4

4 lb 5 oz pork
28 g salt
50 g raisins
2 g pepper
1 g ground cardamom
2 g cinnamon
1/2 cup red wine


This turned out to be my absolute favorite.  Sweet, spicy, bold, salty (just right), and the red wine added its own floral perfume to the mix.  Truly a wonderful eating experience.  I would make this again any time!


The Verdict

I declare my sausage-making experience quite the success.  All the blends turned out well, even #1 after I adjusted it to balance the salt.  And, of course, #4 was the best of all.

At this point I had to decide how I wanted to proceed.  I had the ingredients to make tube sausages but I was running out of time; I had too many other things that had to be done.  So I decided to make them all bulk sausage.

I weighed out 1/2 lb quantities, shaped them into cylinders, and wrapped each in plastic wrap.  Each lump was labeled with the blend number and all the lumps were put into freezer bags with notes as to what was in the blend.

The funny part was how potent the garlic scent was, even through two layers of plastic and solidly frozen.  It has since settled down but, wow!  Strong!

It is nice to know I have a variety of sausage flavors to work with.  It was also fun to discover how easy it was to make up my own flavor combinations and still have them tasty.  My guest taster was astonished at how good they all were; he just hadn't had "high quality edible art" before.

Now he knows!

Stay safe and well, everyone.

Pinterest needs a picture for me to post, so I am including a picture of my cat.  She did not get any sausage but she did ask for some.  : )

The "Making Do" Challenge -- Sausages, part 2

Yesterday I wrote about the beginning of my sausage-making challenge.  I had 15 pounds of pork cushion meat and a variety of items in my kitchen and garden to help make amazingly-flavored sausages (I hoped!).  See yesterday's post here.

Today I want to tell you about the flavor combinations I tried.  These were combinations that I wanted to do by thinking about what I like and playing from there.

The First Blend

3 lb (1359 g) pork chunks
34 g salt
15 g dried apple
2 g total mace and black pepper, roughly 1 g each
about 65 ml liquamen mixed with 65 ml water

Following the directions from Sausage Making for Beginners, I weighed the salt and "other" ingredients, mixed them in with the pork, then set up my grinding station.

Meat and flavoring, but no liquid, tossed and waiting for the grinder

I have a metal grinding attachment for my mixer, so that was assembled and put into the freezer to chill.  The beginner's website said to use the fine plate but the mixer's instructions said to use the medium plate for sausage, so that is what I used.  I set up an ice water bath for the metal mixer bowl which will catch the ground meat.

The fit was very good!

As directed, everything was clean and cold.

It didn't take long to grind the three pounds of pork.





I took a little of the ground meat and cooked it to see what it tasted like before I added the liquid.  It was fine; I liked the flavor, which was a blend of the ingredients and none actually stood out.



Then I added the liquamen and water to it and mixed it with a wooden spoon until meat looked like the bulk sausage I have bought in the store.  I figured that was the best representation of what the paste should look like.  Really, it was just the ground meat but stickier.  I made another patty and was a little worried that it was too salty.  But I was willing to wait until the next day so the flavors could blend.

Then I packed the sausage into a plastic tub and put it into the refrigerator while I planned the next mixture.

The Second Blend

I had read so much about the wonderfulness of garlic in a pork sausage that I decided to try it in this blend.

3 pounds (1359 g) pork chunks
34 g salt
8 g of chopped garlic in oil
12 g fresh parsley
130 ml water

Garlic, salt, and parsley ready to be ground

I went through the same process:  grind the mix, add the water, stir to get a paste.

I cooked a small patty and thought the flavor was the right blend of garlic.  Not sure I got much of the parsley but it wasn't bland.

Then into the refrigerator while I set up the third blend.

The Third Blend

I had just a little over 2 1/4 lbs of pork chunks left.  I decided I would change the flavor ratios more, to make the flavors stronger.  I also wanted to use up the rest of the dried apple.

2 lb 5 oz pork
11 g chives
9 g dried apple
2 g mace
2 g black pepper
125 ml liquamen

Notice that I didn't add any salt to this one.  Since I decided to use all liquamen for the liquid, I hoped that would be enough salt.  I was still worried about the first blend being too salty.

Apple and oniony chives.  Yum!

When I tried a small patty of the paste, I thought the salt level was just right.  I also got the idea that I had put in too much pepper -- it had a bit of a burn to it!  But again, I thought it was a good idea to wait for the flavors to blend.

Tune in tomorrow for part 3 of the sausage-making extravaganza!

The "Making Do" Challenge -- Sausages, part 1

So the world came to a halt while we all hunkered down to wait for the COVID-19 virus to run its course.  As so many other people did, I purchased food to have enough to feed me and mine without having to go to the store very often.  I did not hoard and I never took the last of anything; it is important to me to share with others.

It occurred to me that I am fortunate enough to be able to afford the more expensive food items, like big chunks of meat, higher price-per-pound meat, fancy cheeses, etc.  Then I realized I should buy those foods and leave the inexpensive items for people with lower incomes.  So I came home with a 15 pound bag of pork cushion meat and an idea to learn how to make sausage.

My reading around the internet reminded me that our word "botulism" comes from the Latin word for sausage, emphasizing the need to be careful and clean in the making process.  I needed to learn the right way to do it; to this end, I found this website:  "Sausage Making for Beginners."

I appreciate the step-by-step instructions and discussion the author offers.  I like that he gives some recipes to help me see what to do.  And I am grateful for his emphasis on cleanliness.  The process looked doable, so I set about doing it.

I was inspired by this line:

You will be crafting high quality edible art.

In the area where he gives recipes, he gives these ratios:

• 1 part meat and fat
• 2.5% salt
• 1% other stuff
• Up to 10% liquid

The "other stuff" will define your sausage.  These are things like black pepper, paprika, garlic, sage, onion and chili powder.

The liquid portion can be anything wet (water, wine, stock, milk) and serves four purposes.  (1) It adds moisture to the meat resulting in a juicier sausage.  (2)  It lubricates the meat making stuffing much easier.  (3)  It adds flavor to the sausage if you choose to use wine or stock.  (4) It helps disperse the other seasonings throughout the rest of the sausage.  Make sure any liquid is ice cold before adding to the meat.

In a situation where I need to use what is in my house and not go shopping for specific ingredients, I felt like I was in control of the flavoring.  Between the spices in my pantry and the herbs in my garden, I believed I could make a variety of tasty sausages.

My goal, given the entire 15 pounds of pork to work with, was to make that variety and then freeze them for future use.  I decided that I would take several days to do the entire process.

I love the flavor combination of pork and apple, especially with nutmeg or mace involved.  I asked some experienced charcuterie makers what they thought about using fresh, grated apple and the general opinion was "meh."  Not really worth the effort and it added a lot of moisture.  But, they mentioned, they have had good results with dried fruits, so I decided to make dried apple bits to put into the sausage.

I took a clean apple, cut it into quarters, cored it, then sliced it thinly on my hand-shredder/slicer.  The pieces went onto a sheet and into my oven, set on warm.

Ready to dry

After drying like this overnight, I had crispy apple slices that I broke up into pieces (not intentionally but most had stuck to the pan), and planned on using them in at least one sausage mixture.

Dry and flavorful

I also got out the pork and started cutting it into the suggested 1 to 2 inch size chunks.  It was very cold, as it should be, but after getting through about half of the package, my meat-holding hand was going numb.  I stopped there and put the meat back into the refrigerator to chill overnight (the same night the apples were drying).

First cut the slabs.  Leave the fat, remove the slime (of which there was very little)

About 8 pounds of pork chunks.

Whew!  It helps to have a very sharp knife.

Tune back in tomorrow to see how I flavored the meat and did the grinding.

Roman Fish Sauce -- Liquamen, Garum -- Once Again

A little over a year ago, a fisherman friend, MB, gave me a bag of mackerel he had caught off a local pier.  I decided I wanted to make liquamen again, but this time with a lower salt ratio.

My previous attempt is documented here.  Beware:  Some of the pictures are pretty graphic.

After reading around the internet at other bloggers' attempts, I decided to use the smallest recommended amount of salt, roughly 10 parts fish to 1 part salt, by weight.

The mix of whole fish and salt went into a glass container that I sealed up tight and put on the floor by a sliding glass door.  The idea was that I could see it go through the process, get some sunshine on it, and still not stink up my house.  Well, that and keep the cats out of it, too. 

The container sat on my floor for an entire year.  I watched it first start accumulating liquid, then the fish started "melting" into the liquid.  Occasionally I shook the container just to see how it was coming along.

After a while I saw fish bones and brown chunky muck as the majority of the contents.  And then the muck started separating into layers:  chunks on the bottom, clear liquid on top, and other particulate liquid on top of that.  Even after I shook it, the layers would reappear.

You can see the layers reforming after the container was moved.

Once the one-year mark passed, I opened the container and began filtering the contents.   One thing I noticed is that there were no big particles left -- all the flesh had broken down into tiny bits.  The only things that were big were the bones.

This is what I ladled out, leaving bones behind.  Very fine textures.

First filtering.

I used the same bag and metal filtering process I used before.  The bag got out the "big" particles but the liquid was still cloudy.  The metal coffee filter cleared it up.

But now the big test had arrived.  How did it taste as compared to the previous attempt and to what you can buy in the Asian market?

I asked my Vietnamese friends, CN and LP, to give it a try.  CN had told me once, "I am Vietnamese!  We have fish sauce in our blood!"  So I knew they were the right people to judge.

They had tried my first attempt and I asked them to compare it to my second attempt.

Their assessment was put so nicely in a note from LP: 

I have never had pure fish sauce before.  It's so good, especially the second time with less salt.  The taste is rich in protein.

I have had fish sauce my whole life and this sauce is the best.  I have used a couple of teaspoons in soup.  It tasted better than the fish sauce I bought in the store. 

There you have it!  An expert's opinion!

I liked it, too.  My thought was that, with less salt, I could taste more of a sweetness to it.  Perhaps it was wishful thinking or perhaps it was that I expected it to taste more like the Thai fish sauce + reduced grape juice mixture that I tried first.  (See this post.)  But it tasted better to me.

I am so glad I tried the "reduced salt" version.  Trust me, it is still very salty, but I think more flavorful.

I use it in soups and stews, to increase the salt content but, more importantly, to raise up the richness and meaty taste, the "umami" fifth flavor we love so much.  Sometimes I made a sauce from it.  It is really good on grilled beef.

Success!  I won't actively seek out more raw fish to make this sauce, but if some happens to come my way, I know what to do with it.

 

Liquamen/Garum -- Making Roman Empire Fish Sauce from Fish

Previously I had made liquamen at home via Sally Grainger's recipe using a premade fish sauce and adjusting the flavor with reduced white grape juice.  See the results here.

But now it is time to try making it on my own, from scratch, using fish.  I had talked to people at last February's Culinary Symposium about it, and they assured me it was a reasonable task to undertake.

Many websites talk about how to make it, and many bloggers have tried.  Let's see how this goes!


WARNING:  Some of the pictures show dead fish parts.  Decide before you look if you can stomach it.


Day 1

I started with about 5 lbs of bonita parts:  heads, skeletons (the leftover parts after removing the tasty flesh), innards (it is important to use the intestines for the enzymes they bring), and bits of meat that just weren't worth trying to cook.  I put them in a clean plastic bucket **that had a lid** along with about 1 lb of kosher salt.

I first put in a layer of salt, then some fish parts, then sprinkled the parts with more salt.  Then I kept layering until about 1 lb (20% by weight of the fish parts) was used.  I stirred the whole thing as best as I could (to coat the pieces), put the lid on, and placed the whole container out on the back patio, where it would get a lot of sun.

Salted bonita parts.  

You really need a lid, to keep out dirt but also to keep out the flies that are very attracted to it.  I put a heavy weight on top of it to discourage nighttime visitors from getting into it.

The Romans used unglazed ceramic containers.  Most of the bloggers used glass jars.  I didn't have a jar or a ceramic container big enough to hold all this, so I was glad for the advice to use a plastic bucket.

You can see that the fish parts filled about 1/4 to 1/3 of the bucket.

Day 2

The next day, when stirring it, I decided it needed more whole fish, so I bought some frozen mackerel, about 73 ounces worth, and added that and another 10 ounces of salt to the bucket.  Again, I stirred the whole thing as well as I could.  I noticed some liquid was already forming.  The smell was fishy and a little rotten, so I was glad I could get the brown liquid to coat everything.

Salty mackerel, before stirring.

The blogs that talk about it say the salt-to-fish ratio runs from 1/10 to 1/5, so I figured I was in the right range, without obsessing over exact quantities.

Day 3

I stirred everything again.  The mackerel was starting to break apart, so they were easily pushed down into the dark brown liquid that was now deeper than the day before.  The smell was fishy, but not rotten, which surprised me.  It actually smelled better than the day before.

Day 4

This time I didn't stir as much as I used the spoons to push the mackerel down into the liquid.  This broke them up a little more, too.  The liquid level was almost to the top of the fish.

The smell was very faint.  Very mildly fishy and I could not smell it at all outside the bucket.  I am astonished.

Day 7

The fish parts are all broken up and the whole quantity has compacted down to about 1/4 of the bucket's volume.  The liquid was thick and brown on top, but when I stirred it, I found thinner liquid underneath.  I think that stirring it was a good idea, as it took the pieces that were on top and got them coated in the salty liquid.

Day 22

I left the whole thing alone until today.  There was a layer of "stuff" floating on the surface, and lots of liquid underneath.  I could see bones (backbone and ribs) that were completely devoid of muscle and flesh.  Instead of stirring, I rotated the bucket around to splash the liquid up on the surface stuff and mix it up a bit.  The smell was pretty fishy but not disgusting, so I am letting it continue.

My fingers are crossed for luck!

Day 30

This is the one month mark, so I took pictures before and after stirring.

Before stirring.

After stirring.

I scooped out about 1 cup of the mixture.

As it was, right out of the container.

First I poured it through a small strainer, which removed the biggest bits and some of the gritty-looking parts.  Then I put it all into a fine filter, a metal coffee strainer that had never been used for making coffee.  This was put over a container and covered with plastic, so it could drip through.

The odor was fishy but not disgusting.  The cats thought the smell was amazing, so I gave them several drops of the liquid, which they quickly licked up.

I filtered it but could not get it clear, so I put the liquid into the refrigerator to see what would happen.  I noticed that everything the liquid touched had a greasy film on it, which wasn't very pleasant at all.

I tasted it and it was very, very fishy.  It did not have that slightly sweet taste the liquamen I made from the fish sauce and grape juice had.  I really didn't like it much but I do have to note that it wasn't too salty, and it didn't taste rotten.

So after one month of fermenting, I think it should continue.

Four Months

The mixture has been sitting on the patio for four months now, and it is time to finish it.  When I opened the container, I was really put off.  The smell was unpleasant and it looked weird, and I was unsure whether what I saw was fish oil or mold.  But before I reacted, I checked with my online friends who have done this before.



D G-T gave me this description:

Fishy salty sludge that looks like chucky mud?  That's OK.  Strain out the solids and you have liquid yuck.  Run that through a coffee filter or wet paper towel and you should get clear amber salty fishy goodness ... that's the goal.  It will flow through the filter VERY slowly.

I felt much better about my experiment and set about with the filtering.

The first round was done outside, using a ladle to get the liquid out of the tub and into two strainers, one a little finer mesh than the other.  I also had a trashcan nearby so I could empty the strainers regularly.  I worked quickly, so I could get it done before too many flies found me.



The result of this first round of filtering was, yes, liquid yuck.  I did notice that the scent wasn't bad at all:  fishy but not rotten or nasty, and I kept getting a hint of the fruity scent that the previous liquamen had.

First round yuck.

I could see all the particles in the liquid and knew I would have to filter them a lot to get it clear.

Filtering, round two, was done indoors.  I used the ladle to scoop the liquid into a strainer that was even finer mesh than the two I used in the first round.  One scoop would drain for a little while and then I had to rotate the strainer to put the liquid over areas that weren't clogged with particles.

Strainer after the liquid passed through.  Time to shake and rinse!

Then I shook the particles out into a bowl.  After every two or three shakes, I rinsed the strainer under clear water.  This worked well.

It didn't take long to accumulate 14 cups (3.5 quarts) of the second round filtered liquid.

Liquid not-so-yuck.

It is still not clear.  Next I will run it through my metal coffee filter to see how that works.

One aspect of this that made me laugh at myself:  All the while I kept thinking, "I need to find a place in the refrigerator for this big container."  Then I realized it had been sitting on my patio for four months and didn't need to be kept cold!  The beauty of salt!

Putting the liquid through the coffee filter helped a lot.  This left me with a slightly cloudy amber liquid, so I poured it through a wet paper towel to finish it off.

The result was an almost perfectly clear amber liquid that smelled fishy but was not bad.

The Verdict

Time for a taste test!

I put the fermented liquamen up against Thai fish sauce and my homemade liquamen that was a mixture of the Thai fish sauce and reduced white grape juice.

All about the same color.  Newest on the right.

I tasted a little of each one and drank a lot of water between tastes to clear my palate.

My fermented liquamen was very salty, slightly sweet, and had a deep umami flavor that I liked.  That umami really made my tastebuds dance and sing.

The Thai fish sauce was salty but not as much as my fermented sauce, it was not sweet, it had a tangy sensation that I didn't like much, and it had umami but the fermented sauce had more.

The fish sauce plus grape juice was definitely sweeter (remember that I mixed them so I controlled the sauce/juice ratio, and I like sweet), not as salty, no tang, and not as rich in umami. 

The fermented sauce had the most umami and the most salt.  The Thai sauce was thicker, almost syrupy, than the other two. 

D G-T says she gets the best results using 7 parts fish to 1 part salt.  Mine was about 6 parts fish to 1 part salt, so I am not surprised about the salt levels in mine.

So was there a clear winner?  Not quite but I would choose depending on my food prep goal.  The fermented sauce was very salty but very umami, so I would take that into account in my recipe.  If I didn't want so much salt, I would use the fish/juice sauce.  The Thai sauce will be used to make more of the fish/juice sauce. 

I declare this to be a success!

One point to note:  at the one month interval, I noted that there was a greasy residue that stuck to everything and bothered me.  This no longer was an issue.  I could see oil/fat in the mixture but it was not sticky nor did it make itself known. 

I'm so glad I did this; what a neat experiment!  My plastic tub resulted in about 14 cups of liquid yuck, which I am still filtering.  Trying to filter it 1/2 cup at a time in the coffee filter was not the best use of time, so I set up a jelly bag (cloth bag for filtering juice for making clear jelly) in a tall jar so I could put in nearly two cups of yuck to filter over time but still cover it to cut down on the fishy odor in the house and keep out bugs/dust/cats.

Very. Slow. Drip.

This can take its time filtering and then I can wash and reuse the bag for the next batch.  Each batch gets filtered through the wet paper towel as the last step, then stored in a corked bottle.  I suspect I will be sharing this liquamen with fellow foodies to get their take on it.  At least I hope I will.

I am thankful to the friends who gave me encouragement and advice on fermenting fish.  I would not have finished it without you.  Special kudos to D G-T!