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Vegetables from Taiwan

Fu cai (Hakka bottled fermented mustard)福菜

Fu cai is the middle of three Hakka mustard products. Mustard is first salted and trodden into sour suan cai, then part-dried in the sun, torn into strips, stuffed into bottles that are turned upside down to drain, and sealed to ferment for months. Dried fully instead, the same greens become mei gan cai.

Fully documentedVegetables4.3 months – 6.6 months

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedThe source describes the method without amounts, only one layer of greens and one layer of salt in the first stage.
Whole mustard greens (Brassica juncea)[tsao2019]
SaltLayered with the greens for the first stage[tsao2019]
Starterspontaneous

Total time across the recorded steps: 4.3 months – 6.6 months

Start
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What changes: Whole mustard plants wilt in the sun until soft

Step 1 of 5
Sun-wilt the whole mustard
Time
24 h – 3 days
Reported
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Lactic acid bacteria
Lactobacillus
Leuconostoc
Weissella

Output: soft, wilted greens.

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

Fu cai is the middle of three Hakka mustard products. Mustard is first salted and trodden into sour suan cai, then part-dried in the sun, torn into strips, stuffed into bottles that are turned upside down to drain, and sealed to ferment for months. Dried fully instead, the same greens become mei gan cai. Made in 5 steps over 4.3 months – 6.6 months. The longest step, tear into strips, stuff into bottles and turn them over, takes 4–6 months (Tsao Ming-tsung 2019). Salt is 2.3–7.9 % (Chiang P.-D. 2007). Lactic acid bacteria of 5 genera and 18 species across the stages and Leuconostoc mesenteroides, L. pseudomesenteroides, Weissella cibaria, W. paramesenteroides and Lactobacillus farciminis do most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step4–6 monthsReported[tsao2019]Tear into strips, stuff into bottles and turn them over
Salt2.3–7.9 %Measured[chiang2007]Layer with salt, tread, weight with stones and seal (suan cai)
AciditypH 3.8–4.3Measured[chiang2007]Layer with salt, tread, weight with stones and seal (suan cai)

What makes this one different

The bottle is turned upside down to drain the greens before it is sealed, which gives fu cai (覆, "turn over") its name; the lucky homophone 福 is used in writing.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Mei gan caiThe half-dried greens are dried until almost no water is left, then tied into bundles.

Safety

The first stage, commercial Taiwanese suan cai, measured pH 3.8 to 4.3 and 2.3 % to 7.9 % salt in a thesis abstract (Chiang 2007). Those figures describe the sour stage, not finished fu cai.

History and sources

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

Taiwanese Hakka grew mustard in the fallow period between rice crops and pickled it to keep it, and one harvest gave suan cai, fu cai and mei gan cai (Tsao 2019). In 2009 Chao and colleagues counted the lactic bacteria at five stages of suan-tsai and fu-tsai. In 2012 the same group named a new species, Lactobacillus futsaii, from these products.

  1. [tsao2019] Tsao Ming-tsung 2019, 客家料理常見的酸菜、福菜、梅乾菜,竟然是來自於同一種菜? foodNEXT, from his book 蚵仔煎的身世 (Owl Publishing)book
  2. [chao2009] Chao S.-H., Wu R.-J., Watanabe K., Tsai Y.-C. 2009, Diversity of lactic acid bacteria in suan-tsai and fu-tsai, traditional fermented mustard products of Taiwan, International Journal of Food Microbiology 135:203–210 (abstract)paper
  3. [chao2012] Chao S.-H., Kudo Y., Tsai Y.-C., Watanabe K. 2012, Lactobacillus futsaii sp. nov., isolated from fu-tsai and suan-tsai, traditional Taiwanese fermented mustard products, International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology 62:489–494 (abstract)paper
  4. [chiang2007] Chiang P.-D. 2007, Improvement on pickled mustard fermentation process and its waste reduction, MSc thesis, National Taiwan University (abstract; commercial and Dabi suan cai)paper