One of the most common appetizers that you see on the menus at Vietnamese restaurants in Houston is chicken wings with caramelized fish sauce. These sweet-salty, crispy wings were one of the first dishes that got me loving the flavors of Vietnamese cooking. As I became more experienced cooking with fish sauce, I took the idea of caramelized fish sauce chicken wings and applied it to the abundance of seasonal vegetables that we’re constantly getting from our local farmers. I'll always have a soft spot for those wings, but I think I might love this recipe even more. And it speaks to the flexibility of fish sauce as an ingredient that it works as well with certain vegetables as it does with meat.
This is a recipe that you can (and should) experiment with—the only “rule” is to use a dense vegetable cut into bite-size pieces. I make versions with broccoli, cauliflower, green beans, okra, Brussels sprouts, and even shishito peppers.
