Super Simple South East Asian Sweet, Sour, Spicy and Salty Sauce

I think the title of this post deserves some sort of award for best alliteration. But, the topic is a serious one. Last night I tried out the wok and made some fried rice flavored with fish sauce, Serranos, garlic, lime and sugar. Various versions of this sauce exist throughout mainland South East Asian cuisines. One sees it in Thai, Vietnamese and Cambodian cooking. Usually it is either used as a dipping sauce or poured over rice. I prefer to mix it in the rice during the final stages of frying. The concoction I whipped up was quite simple. I dissolved three sugar cubes in hot water. For some reason we had no loose sugar. I then added one sliced Serrano, one minced clove of garlic, the juice of two limes and three tablespoons of fish sauce. I stirred up the sauce and then mixed it in my frying rice. When this sauce is used for dipping it usually has shredded carrots in it. Since I already had chopped carrots in the fried rice I skipped on this particular garnish.