Nuoc Mau: Vietnamese Caramel

Nuoc mau, Vietnamese for color water, is a dark caramel used throughout Vietnamese cooking as both a flavoring and coloring agent. Unlike Western dessert caramel, it contains no cream or butter: sugar is cooked alone until it passes from golden amber to a near-black, slightly bitter mahogany. A small amount of water is then carefully added to stop the cooking and thin it to a pourable sauce. The result adds deep bittersweet intensity to braised pork, clay pot fish and caramelized dishes. In this episode it gave a coconut-braised pork belly its characteristic glossy darkness and concentrated sweetness. Small bottles are available at Vietnamese grocers, but a fresh batch made at home is far superior.