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Fish and seafood from Indonesia

Wadi (Kalimantan fermented fish)wadi

Wadi is Central Kalimantan freshwater fish salted for about a day, drained, then coated with samu, rice roasted without oil and ground, and left in a closed jar to ferment for about a week. It comes out semi-wet and salty, and is cooked before eating. A lab study found 7.5% salt and seven days gave the best catfish wadi.

Fully documentedFish and seafood8 days – 11 days

Recipe

Amounts from a sourceOne 500 g lab batch of catfish wadi from Waty et al. 2019; households do not weigh the salt, which can make wadi very salty.
Catfish (Pangasius) pieces, cleaned500 g[waty2019]
Salt37.5 g (7.5% of fish weight)The study tested 5, 7.5 and 10%; 7.5% gave the best wadi[waty2019]
Samu (rice roasted until brown, then ground and sieved)10% of fish weight[waty2019]
Palm sugar (gula aren), optional3% of fish weight in one documented recipeAdded with garlic and flavour enhancer in the Palangka Raya training recipe, and at 3% in the recipe that Silvita and colleagues analysed[lenlioni2025][silvita2025]
Starterspontaneous

Total time across the recorded steps: 8 days – 11 days

Start
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What changes: The freshwater fish are cleaned and cut into pieces

Step 1 of 5
Clean and cut the fish
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Lactic acid bacteria

Silvita and colleagues record the fish as gutted, filleted and washed. The FDA says fish to be fermented should have all its internal organs removed first, because botulism spores sit in the gut.

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

Wadi is Central Kalimantan freshwater fish salted for about a day, drained, then coated with samu, rice roasted without oil and ground, and left in a closed jar to ferment for about a week. It comes out semi-wet and salty, and is cooked before eating. A lab study found 7.5% salt and seven days gave the best catfish wadi. Made in 5 steps over 8 days – 11 days. The longest step, ferment in a tightly closed jar, takes 7–10 days (Waty K 2019). Salt is 5–10 % (Waty K 2019).

Key numbers
Main step7–10 daysReported[waty2019]Ferment in a tightly closed jar
Temperature26–30 °CReported[waty2019]Salt and leave in a closed container
Salt5–10 %Reported[waty2019]Salt and leave in a closed container

What makes this one different

Wadi is the Central Kalimantan form of the salted fish-and-rice ferments. It is coated with dry roasted ground rice, where plaa som uses cooked rice, and the fish is salted and drained for a day first.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Documented Dayak and Banjar process (Silvita et al. 2025)Fish is cleaned, mixed with crushed salt at a ratio given as 10:1, left in a large jar for 24 hours, rinsed and drained for 10 minutes, then mixed with 3% palm sugar and 4% roasted ground rice (samu) and sealed in a jar for 3 days. The paper builds this from online descriptions, with Bakrie (2020) as its source table, and did not test it.

Safety

Treat botulism as a real risk with this method; no study we read tested wadi for it. Wadi is fish and rice in a tightly closed jar at about 28 °C. The lab study charts pH and salt but states no values in its text, and no source we read gives a water activity. The FDA's pathogen table puts the growth limits for proteolytic Clostridium botulinum at pH 4.6 and 10 % water-phase salt, and its time guidance for fish is 2 hours above 21 °C; wadi spends days above that with no figure here to show those limits are met. The CDC names improperly fermented homemade foods as a common source of botulism, and says you cannot see, smell or taste the toxin and even a small taste can be deadly. The recipes here record a lab batch and a training batch, not a safe home method, and "best" in the lab study means quality tests. Never taste wadi before cooking, and do not count on cooking; the FDA says boiling for 10 minutes can destroy the toxin but should not be relied on as a control. Households do not weigh the salt; Waty et al. note this can make wadi very salty.

History and sources

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

Lenlioni and colleagues (2025) describe wadi as a food reserve of the Dayak Ngaju of Central Kalimantan, made by a recipe handed down over generations and kept in a balanai, a kind of jar.

Microbes
No study we found names its microbes.
  1. [waty2019] Waty K., Purwijantiningsih E., Pranata S. 2019, Kualitas fermentasi spontan wadi ikan patin (Pangasius sp.) dengan variasi konsentrasi garam, Biota 4(1):24–32paper
  2. [lenlioni2025] Lenlioni L., Buji G.E., Sundari, Hariatama F., Febiola F.J. 2025, Pelatihan pembuatan kuliner ikan wadi patin bagi mahasiswa Program Studi Pendidikan Ekonomi UPR dalam menumbuhkan minat wirausaha, Kahayan, Jurnal Pengabdian Kepada Masyarakat 2(1):30–39, Universitas Palangka Rayapaper
  3. [silvita2025] Silvita, Prasetyo O., Ruwaida U., Aurora Z.F., Oktaviana R. 2025, From culture to science, exploring scientific knowledge in the making of wadi, a traditional dish of the Dayak and Banjar, Jurnal Penelitian Pendidikan IPA 11(12):261–268paper
  4. [fda-app4] US FDA 2011, Fish and Fishery Products Hazards and Controls Guidance, 4th ed., Appendix 4, Bacterial pathogen growth and inactivation, Tables A-1 and A-2gov
  5. [fda-ch13] US Food and Drug Administration, Fish and Fishery Products Hazards and Controls Guidance, Chapter 13: Clostridium botulinum Toxin Formationgov
  6. [cdc-botulism] US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Botulism Preventiongov