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Fermentation Atlas

Fish and seafood from Southern Thailand

Tai-plaaไตปลา

The guts of sea fish are pressed empty, washed, mixed with salt and left in closed earthen jars in the sun for 10 to 20 days. They ferment into a salty, red-brown, semi-solid paste that is the base of the southern Thai curry gaeng tai pla. Made in 4 steps over 12 months – 13 months. The longest step, finished paste, takes up to 12 months (JIRCAS 1995). Salt is 9.1–16.7 % (JIRCAS 1995). Pediococcus halophilus (now Tetragenococcus halophilus) and other Pediococcus and Lactobacillus do most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main stepup to 12 monthsReported[jircas-taiplaa]Finished paste
Salt9.1–16.7 %Reported[jircas-taiplaa]Mix the viscera with salt
AciditypH 5.6Measured[chanudom2018]Finished paste
Fully documentedFish and seafood12 months – 13 monthsMore fish and seafoodMore from Thailand

Recipe

Amounts from a sourceRatios by weight from the JIRCAS Thai fermented-foods database; the amount of viscera is not fixed.
Fish viscera · Families making it for themselves prefer the guts of big, fatty fish such as snapper and mullet[jircas-taiplaa]
1 part to 5–10 parts viscera by weightSea salt[jircas-taiplaa]
A little, in some placesPotassium nitrate[jircas-taiplaa]
Starterspontaneous

Total time across the recorded steps: 12 months – 13 months

Start
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What changes: The fish guts are squeezed empty and washed

Step 1 of 4
Press out the gut contents and wash
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Lactic acid bacteria
Bacillus break
Pediococcus halophilus
Pediococcus
Lactobacillus

Output: cleaned viscera.

Flavour
left unpressed, the guts give a bitter paste, which some places prefer
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

Tai-plaa uses only the guts, not the flesh. That makes it fattier and quicker to ferment (10 to 20 days in the sun) than whole-fish pastes like pla ra, and it goes rancid sooner.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Bitter tai-plaaThe gut contents are left in, which makes the paste bitter; some places prefer it.

Safety

The FDA notes that histamine can form while fish is salted and fermented, until the product is shelf-stable, and it uses 50 ppm as its guidance level; illness usually involves more than 200 ppm. In 30 southern Thai fermented seafood samples, most of them tai-pla, histamine measured 35–41 ppm by one kit, with one tai-pla sample in the 75–100 ppm band by test strip. Viscera carry many gut bacteria, so start from fresh fish, keep the salt up and cook the paste.

Hazards the sources name: Staphylococcus aureus; Histamine-forming bacteria (27 isolates from southern Thai fermented seafood, most of the samples tai-pla).

History and sources

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

Tai-plaa is made as a large-scale home industry in southern Thailand, where it uses the guts left over from the sea catch (JIRCAS).

  1. [jircas-taiplaa] JIRCAS, Database of Fermented Foods of Thailand, Tai-plaa (record based on The Traditional Fermented Foods of Thailand, 1995)gov
  2. [chanudom2018] Chanudom L. and Thongsom M. 2018, Isolation of histamine-forming bacteria and quality analysis of fermented seafood products in Nakhon Si Thammarat province, Wichcha Journal 37(1):12–24 (in Thai, English abstract)paper
  3. [fda-ch7] US FDA 2011, Fish and Fishery Products Hazards and Controls Guidance, 4th ed., Chapter 7, Scombrotoxin (histamine) formationgov