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Vegetables from Thailand

Khing-dorng (pickled young ginger)ขิงดอง

Khing-dorng is young ginger, peeled and sliced thinly, kept under a boiled and cooled mix of sugar, salt and vinegar for about 7 days until the liquid clears. The flesh turns pinkish yellow and salty, sour and slightly sweet.

Fully documentedVegetables5 days – 7 days

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedHome recipe with no amounts on the JIRCAS card. The community standard defines the product but sets no recipe.
Young ginger rhizomesCleaned, peeled and sliced thinly but not right through[jircas]
Sugar, salt and vinegarMixed and boiled hard, then cooled; the card gives no amounts[jircas]

Total time across the recorded steps: 5 days – 7 days

Start
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What changes: Young ginger is peeled and sliced thinly, not quite through

Step 1 of 5
Clean, peel and slice the ginger
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented

Slices are cut thinly but not right through, so they hold together.

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

Khing-dorng is young ginger, peeled and sliced thinly, kept under a boiled and cooled mix of sugar, salt and vinegar for about 7 days until the liquid clears. The flesh turns pinkish yellow and salty, sour and slightly sweet. Made in 5 steps over 5 days – 7 days. The longest step, cover the ginger, close the jar and leave until the liquid clears, takes 5–7 days (JIRCAS 2026). Salt is 20.9 % (Pan-Utai W 2024).

Key numbers
Main step5–7 daysReported[jircas][panutai2024]Cover the ginger, close the jar and leave until the liquid clears
Salt20.9 %Measured[panutai2024]Finished pickle
AciditypH up to 4Set[tcps1025][panutai2024]Finished pickle

What makes this one different

Unlike the brine-and-rice Thai pickles, khing-dorng starts in a sweet vinegar mix, so it is partly acidified from the first day. Market samples are far sweeter and saltier than most Thai vegetable pickles [panutai2024].

Related ferments

Safety

Thailand's community standard for pickled ginger requires pH 4 or below, total microbes at most 1 × 10^4 per gram, no Staphylococcus aureus in 0.1 g, E. coli below 3 per gram (MPN) and yeasts and moulds at most 100 per gram. It bans synthetic colours, and the liquid must show no white film or bubbles from fermentation [tcps1025].

Hazards the sources name: Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli (the pickled-ginger standard sets limits for both).

History and sources

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

History
The sources we found do not record its history.
Starter
The sources we found do not say how its fermentation begins.
  1. [jircas] JIRCAS, Database of Fermented Foods of Thailand, Khing-dorng (pickled ginger) card, read 2026-10-23gov
  2. [tcps1025] Thai Industrial Standards Institute 2005, Thai Community Product Standard มผช.1025/2548, Pickled ginger (khing dong) (copy on archive.org)spec
  3. [panutai2024] Pan-Utai W., Settachaimongkon S., La-Ongkham O. et al. 2024, Physicochemical, nutritional, and antioxidant properties of traditionally fermented Thai vegetables, Foods 13(17):2848, doi:10.3390/foods13172848 (Tables 1–3)paper