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Sauces and condiments from Myanmar

Bazun ngan-pya-ye (shrimp sauce)

Bazun ngan-pya-ye is Myanmar's shrimp sauce, the liquid drawn from salted marine shrimp ripened in concrete tanks. In the 1980s it was made mostly in a state factory in Yangon, then heated to 105 °C and bottled. In a study of four bottled brands every isolate grown on salty MRS agar was Tetragenococcus muriaticus, but DNA analysis found Halanaerobium, not a lactic acid bacterium, dominant in two of the four.

Fully documentedSauces and condiments

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedState factory process. Ishige and Ruddle were refused a visit, so batch sizes and times are not known.
Small marine shrimpSalted at the coast as a semi-product[ishige1987]
SaltCoastal hmyin shrimp paste takes 20–25 % salt by weight; the salt in the factory semi-product is not recorded[ishige1987]
Starterspontaneous
Start
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Close-up: salt moving into a piece

What changes: Small shrimp are mixed with salt at the coast and shipped inland

Step 1 of 4
Salt the shrimp at the coast
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
T. muriaticus
Pediococcus halophilus
T. halophilus

Output: salted shrimp semi-product, shipped to Yangon.

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

Bazun ngan-pya-ye is Myanmar's shrimp sauce, the liquid drawn from salted marine shrimp ripened in concrete tanks. In the 1980s it was made mostly in a state factory in Yangon, then heated to 105 °C and bottled. In a study of four bottled brands every isolate grown on salty MRS agar was Tetragenococcus muriaticus, but DNA analysis found Halanaerobium, not a lactic acid bacterium, dominant in two of the four. Salt is 28.8 % (Mizutani T 1988). Tetragenococcus muriaticus and Halanaerobium do most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Temperature105 °CReported[ishige1987]Heat to 105 °C and bottle
Salt28.8 %Measured[mizutani1988]Heat to 105 °C and bottle
AciditypH 7.1Measured[mizutani1988]Heat to 105 °C and bottle

What makes this one different

Ngan-pya-ye is fish sauce. Bazun ngan-pya-ye is made from marine shrimp, usually costs two to three times as much, and is used at about a tenth of the volume.

Related ferments

Safety

The 1982 sample held 28.8 g/dL salt. The factory process heats the sauce to 105 °C before bottling.

History and sources

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

In the 1980s shrimp sauce was mostly a state monopoly product of the Foodstuffs Trading Corporation factory in Rangoon (Yangon). Bottled factory fish sauce began in 1956.

Process times
The sources we found give no figure for how long any of its steps take.
  1. [ishige1987] Ishige N., Ruddle K. 1987, 東南アジアの魚醤 (fermented fish products in Southeast Asia; study of fermented fish products 5), Bulletin of the National Museum of Ethnology 12(2), pp. 280–283 (Burma)paper
  2. [mizutani1988] Mizutani T., Kimizuka A., Ruddle K., Ishige N. 1988, A chemical analysis of fermented fish products and discussion of fermented flavors in Asian cuisines, Bulletin of the National Museum of Ethnology 12(3), table 5, table 21 and sample B/SS/M/1, doi:10.15021/00004344paper
  3. [kobayashi2020] Kobayashi T. et al. 2020, Microbiological properties of Myanmar traditional shrimp sauce, hmyin-ngan-pya-ye, Fisheries Science 86(3):551–560, doi:10.1007/s12562-020-01415-3 (abstract, read through Europe PMC)paper