Fish Sauces Flavored with Crustacean and Coral Butters

Crustacean butters are often used to finish fish sauces to give them additional complexity and an appealing red or orange hue. Many of the classic fish sauces that are finished with crustacean butter have a similar taste because it is hard to distinguish among the different butters. To capture the full complexity of a crustacean’s flavor, it is essential to start with the whole living animal (see Chapter 11, “Crustacean Sauces”). The sauces listed below should be thought of as fish sauces nuanced with crustacean butters, rather than the full-flavored crustacean sauces that can be found in that chapter. A sauce can also be finished with coral or roe from scallops (provided it has clean, orange coloring) or sea urchins. Generally these ingredients are best worked with an equal amount of butter before being added to the sauce; this makes them less likely to curdle.