Skip to main content
Support

Browse by category

All categories
Fermentation Atlas

Cereals and bread from Ecuadorian Andes

Arroz requemado (Ecuadorian fermented rice)arroz requemado

"Dry rice" (arroz seco) eaten at every meal in the highlands. The fermentation heat partly pre-cooks it, so it cooks faster at altitude, where water boils at about 87 °C at 3,000 m. Riboflavin is about double that of unfermented rice and a few per cent of the protein becomes soluble; no aflatoxin was found [VANVEEN1968]. Made in 4 steps over 13 days – 30 days. The longest step, turn and re-cover, takes 6–15 days (van Veen A.G 1968). Bacillus subtilis does most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step6–15 daysReported[VANVEEN1968]Turn and re-cover
Temperature50–80 °CReported[VANVEEN1968]Self-heating fermentation
DocumentedCereals and bread13 days – 30 daysMore cereals and breadMore from Peru

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedWhat goes in. No source gives amounts for this ferment.
moist unhusked (paddy) rice; thin-hulled varieties Fortuna and Carolina preferred, Chato-Canilla when short
Starter: spontaneous

Total time across the recorded steps: 13 days – 30 days

Start
Drag the bar or press Play
shapes, not to countBacillus subtilis

What changes: Moist paddy is heaped under tarpaulins until it starts to heat

Step 1 of 4
Heap moist paddy under tarpaulins until it starts
Time
3–10 days
Reported
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Bacillus subtilis

Output: paddy beginning to heat.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

Not documented for this step.

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

Described by Herzfeld in 1957 and studied by van Veen, Graham and Steinkraus in 1968 [VANVEEN1968]; listed in FAO 1999 ch. 4 Table 1 [s1].

  1. [s1] FAO 1999 ch.4 Table 1, https://www.fao.org/4/x2184E/x2184e10.htmgov
  2. [VANVEEN1968] van Veen A.G., Graham D.C.W., Steinkraus K.H. 1968/1969, Fermented rice, a food from Ecuador, Archivos Latinoamericanos de Nutrición (quoting Herzfeld H.C. 1957, Rice fermentation in Ecuador, Economic Botany 11:267)paper