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Joan from Eureka, CA, is a precocious ethnic food shopper. Every once in a while, she sends me an email asking for assistance with identifying some unusual ingredient that she's just picked up at a Viet market. I love her questions because I don't have time to keep track of all the new products out there. Viet people are hyper entrepreneurial so you never know what they'll produce next.

Recently Joan queried about something called "Coconut Thin Sauce" — the jarred stuff to the right.

"Was it caramel sauce?" she asked.

Yes, it is. Coconut Thin Sauce is a wacky English translation for nuoc mau dua, which literally means "coconut color water" in Vietnamese. I've always made my caramel sauce from granulated sugar like my mama taught me, but there are Viet cooks, particularly those in the southern region, who employ coconut juice (the clear liquid inside a young coconut) to craft their bittersweet caramel sauce. They cook it down until it has darkened and become bittersweet.

(If you're not familiar with caramel sauce, it's one of the cornerstones of Viet cooking. The sauce is inky and bittersweet, a staple ingredient that's used for simmering foods (fish, shrimp, meats, chicken, tofu) into a wonderful, homey dishes. You can also use to color foods, pretty much the same way molasses are used in American kitchens. For more in caramel sauce, see this article from the Los Angeles Times.)

Curious myself, I picked up a jar for $1.19 at a Cambodian market in Stockton, CA, where I happened to be doing some work. (I'm sure you can get the stuff at a Viet market but I was in Stockton!) Contrary to its name, this stuff is not thin at all. In fact, it's thick, almost bordering honey in consistency. When I spooned it out of the jar, it dragged a bit. On a plate (see the photo on the right), the pool of sauce pretty much held its slightly convex shape. It's also sticky, as I found out when I got some on my fingers and when I tried wiping if off the jar. It didn't clean up easily.

"What does this manufactured coconut juice caramel sauce taste like?" you wonder.

Well, it's dense, a tongue coater with an intense bittersweet taste. I thought it was okay to taste straight from the jar. My husband nearly choked and had to rinse his mouth out.

"How does the sauce perform in the kitchen?" is the BIG question.

I made a chicken and ginger kho by simmering boneless skinless chicken thigh with the caramel sauce. There were two versions, one with the commercial coconut juice that I purchased and the granulated sugar caramel sauce that I made at home. Because the coconut sauce was so dense and thick, I used about 1/3 of the amount I regular used of the homemade sauce. The results were okay, a bit flat and darker than I like. The coconut caramel sauce is heavy and it overwhelmed the other flavors, such as the savoriness of the chicken and the bite of ginger. You couldn't taste the chicken and ginger very well. The sauce didn't marry well with the other ingredients and in fact, functioned like a heavy blanket and weighted them down too much.

I also added water to compensate for the smaller amount of coconut caramel sauce used. The next time around, I'd use 1/4 of what I'd normally use.

But would I use the commercial caramel sauce again? Is it worth the $1.19 or seeking it out in the first place? Not really. It didn't do anything special to the dish. I liked the regular version that I prepare -- and I'm not saying this because I'm biased. If the commercial stuff was up to snuff or superior, I'd tell you so. The convenience of purchasing commercially made caramel sauce is counterbalanced by the fact that it can be rather messy to work with. It sticks to utensils.

My advice is to just make your own. Homemade caramel sauce is more nuanced and you can just make it out of regular white sugar — which is conveniently available at a supermarket.