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Fermentation Atlas

Fish and seafood from Thailand

Pla raปลาร้า

Small freshwater fish are gutted, salted and packed in earthenware jars, then mixed with roasted rice or rice bran and left for six months or more. Salt and lactic bacteria turn the fish into a pungent, salty, slightly sour paste that keeps for years and seasons much of north-eastern Thai food. Made in 6 steps over 12 months – 4.3 years. The longest step, keep in the jar and use as a seasoning, takes 6 months – 3 years (JIRCAS 1995). Salt is 16.7–25 % (JIRCAS 1995). Tetragenococcus muriaticus and T. halophilus and Lactobacillus acidipiscis, L. rennini and L. futsaii do most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step6 months – 3 yearsReported[jircas-plaraa]Keep in the jar and use as a seasoning
Salt16.7–25 %Reported[jircas-plaraa]Salt the fish
AciditypH 4.5–5.7Measured[marui2015]Mix with rice and ferment
Fully documentedFish and seafood12 months – 4.3 yearsMore fish and seafoodMore from Thailand

Recipe

Amounts from a sourceRatios by weight from the JIRCAS Thai fermented-foods database. It says there is no standard and each producer sets the salt level.
Freshwater fish, gutted, washed and drained · Lean, unsorted fish; small fish are common in the north-east[jircas-plaraa]
1 part to 3–5 parts fishSalt · About 1 to 4 for large fish and 1 to 5 for small fish; each maker has their own level[jircas-plaraa]
1 part to 10 parts fish (roasted grain) or 1 to 5 (bran)Roasted rice, glutinous rice or paddy, coarsely ground; or rice bran, roasted or not · Gives flavour and colour and feeds the bacteria[jircas-plaraa]
Starterspontaneous

Total time across the recorded steps: 12 months – 4.3 years

Start
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What changes: The fish are gutted and washed, and the water drains away

Step 1 of 6
Gut, wash and drain the fish
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
T. muriaticus
L. acidipiscis
Lactobacillus rennini
Tetragenococcus
Lactobacilli

Output: cleaned fish.

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

What makes this one different

Pla ra is a long, high-salt ferment with roasted rice or bran. Plaa-som and som-fak use much less salt and more cooked rice, and are ready in days. Lao padaek is the same food made saltier (15–20 %), so it stays less sour.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Pla ra nuaSmall to medium fish with salt and rice bran at 4:1:1 for about four to six months; a gentler smell than pla ra hom (Thailand Foundation).
  • Pla ra homLarge fish such as snakehead, more salt, and six to ten months of fermentation (Thailand Foundation).
  • Northern Thai pla raLower salt (8.3–8.6 %), pH 4.5–4.8 and 2.4–3.1 g/100 g lactic acid; lactobacilli dominate.
  • Central Thai pla raSaltier (11.3–12.3 %) and less sour (pH 5.6–5.7); Tetragenococcus dominates.

Safety

Salt is the main control. In padaek, the Lao sister product, home batches started at 6.5 or 10 % salt built up histamine within 2 weeks at 30 °C and passed 1,000 ppm in 6 months, while batches at 18 % salt formed none (Marui et al. 2021). The FDA notes that histamine can form during salting and fermenting until a fish product is shelf-stable, and it uses 50 ppm as its guidance level. Long-fermented pla ra rarely holds live liver-fluke larvae, but raw and briefly fermented cyprinid fish do, so pla ra is safest cooked.

Hazards the sources name: Clostridium species (two found in one of ten products; not identified as toxin formers); Liver fluke Opisthorchis viverrini (in raw or briefly fermented cyprinid fish).

History and sources

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

Fermenting fish let makers keep seasonal freshwater fish all year and gave value to small fish that sell for little fresh (Marui et al. 2015). Pla ra is traced to the Ayutthaya kingdom, and the French envoy Simon de la Loubère described fish fermented in earthen jars in 1687 (Thailand Foundation).

  1. [jircas-plaraa] JIRCAS, Database of Fermented Foods of Thailand, Plaa-raa (record based on The Traditional Fermented Foods of Thailand, 1995)gov
  2. [marui2015] Marui J., Boulom S., Panthavee W. et al. 2015, Culture-independent bacterial community analysis of the salty-fermented fish paste products of Thailand and Laos, Biosci. Microbiota Food Health 34(2):45–52, doi:10.12938/bmfh.2014-018paper
  3. [rodpai2021] Rodpai R., Sanpool O., Thanchomnang T. et al. 2021, Investigating the microbiota of fermented fish products (Pla-ra) from different communities of northeastern Thailand, PLoS ONE 16(1):e0245227 (abstract)paper
  4. [marui2021] Marui J., Phouphasouk S., Giavang Y. et al. 2021, Relationship between salinity and histamine accumulation in padaek, a salt-fermented freshwater fish paste from Laos, J. Food Prot. 84(3):434–441, doi:10.4315/JFP-20-272 (abstract)paper
  5. [fda-ch7] US FDA 2011, Fish and Fishery Products Hazards and Controls Guidance, 4th ed., Chapter 7, Scombrotoxin (histamine) formationgov
  6. [kaewpitoon2008] Kaewpitoon N., Kaewpitoon S.J., Pengsaa P. 2008, Opisthorchiasis in Thailand, review and current status, World J. Gastroenterol. 14(15):2297–2302paper
  7. [jircas2014] JIRCAS 2014, Importance of salt concentration and long-term fermentation in the quality of salty-fermented freshwater fish paste in Thailand and Laos, research highlight C04gov
  8. [s2] Thailand Foundation, Pla ra, Thai fermented fish (variants and history)web