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Fish and seafood from Thailand

Plaa-paeng-daengปลาแป้งแดง

Plaa-paeng-daeng is southern Thai sea fish salted overnight, washed and packed in a red rice paste coloured with angkak (red mould rice). It ferments for four or five days and turns pink to dark red, sour and salty. The community product standard requires a pH of 4.6 or lower, and its example of label advice is to cook it before eating.

Fully documentedFish and seafood4 days – 5 days

Recipe

Amounts from a sourceThe JIRCAS database method, about 1 kg of salted fish per litre of red rice paste.
Sea fish, cleaned, gutted, scaled, headed and cut (small fish only scaled and gutted)3 parts fish to 1 part salt (w/w)[jircas]
RiceExcess water, boiled to a soft paste[jircas]
Angkak (red mould rice), poundedAbout 10 g per litre of rice paste[jircas]
SugarA littleOptional, said to help the fermentation[jircas]

Total time across the recorded steps: 4 days – 5 days

Start
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Close-up: salt moving into a fish

What changes: Cut fish sit overnight in salt, three parts to one

Step 1 of 5
Clean, cut and salt the fish overnight
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Pediococcus halophilus
Pediococcus sp.
Saccharomyces cerevisiae
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

At a glance

Plaa-paeng-daeng is southern Thai sea fish salted overnight, washed and packed in a red rice paste coloured with angkak (red mould rice). It ferments for four or five days and turns pink to dark red, sour and salty. The community product standard requires a pH of 4.6 or lower, and its example of label advice is to cook it before eating. Made in 5 steps over 4 days – 5 days. The longest step, ferment, takes 4–5 days (JIRCAS 1995). Pediococcus halophilus and Pediococcus sp. and Saccharomyces cerevisiae do most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step4–5 daysReported[jircas]Ferment
AciditypH up to 4.6Set[tcps1030]Ferment

What makes this one different

Plaa-paeng-daeng is coloured with angkak and packed in boiled rice paste. North-eastern plaa-som uses plain cooked rice and garlic and stays greyish white.

Related ferments

Safety

The community product standard (TCPS 1030-2548) requires pH 4.6 or lower, fewer than 100 S. aureus per g, no Clostridium perfringens in 0.01 g, fewer than 10 E. coli per g, no parasites, and bans borax, nitrate, nitrite and synthetic colours. Its label must carry eating and storage advice, with cooking before eating as an example, and JIRCAS lists only cooked dishes. WHO names fermented fish among foods that have carried botulinum toxin. The salt is washed off before the fish goes into the rice paste in a closed jar, and C. botulinum can grow until the pH falls below 4.6. Acid does not remove toxin already formed, and the FDA says not to rely on boiling to destroy it.

History and sources

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

Nipa Atisap of Songkhla told Thai PBS (14 April 2026) that plaa-paeng-daeng was once the fishers' way of keeping the small fish left over from sales, and the article says it is now getting hard to find. Kingkaew et al. (2023) call it a typical fermented food of southern Thailand. The Thai Industrial Standards Institute issued the community product standard in 2005 (TCPS 1030-2548).

Starter
The sources we found do not say how its fermentation begins.
  1. [who-botulism] World Health Organization, Botulism, fact sheetgov
  2. [fda-ch13] US Food and Drug Administration, Fish and Fishery Products Hazards and Controls Guidance, Chapter 13: Clostridium botulinum Toxin Formationgov
  3. [jircas] JIRCAS, Database of Fermented Foods of Thailand, Plaa-paeng-daeng (references The traditional fermented foods of Thailand, 1995), read 2026-10gov
  4. [tcps1030] Thai Industrial Standards Institute 2005, Thai Community Product Standard มผช.1030/2548, Pla paeng daeng (TCPS 1030-2548)spec
  5. [kingkaew2023] Kingkaew E., Konno H., Hosaka Y., Phongsopitanun W., Tanasupawat S. 2023, Characterization of lactic acid bacteria from fermented fish (pla-paeng-daeng) and their cholesterol-lowering and immunomodulatory effects, Microbes Environ. 38:ME22044paper
  6. [thaipbs-paengdaeng] Hansaphan P. 2026, Plaa-paeng-daeng, the red taste of Nang Ngam Road, Songkhla (in Thai), Thai PBS NOW, 14 April 2026web