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Fish and seafood from Korea

Gejang (ganjang-gejang)게장

Well-washed fresh crabs are put in soy sauce that was boiled with onion, chilli, kelp and ginger and then cooled, and aged two to four days. The crab is eaten raw. It is a marinade more than a ferment, so pathogens and, in freshwater crabs, lung flukes can survive.

Fully documentedFish and seafood2 days – 4 days

Recipe

Gejang (ganjang-gejang), a photo from Wikimedia Commons
Photo: derivative work: Caspian blue ( talk ) Korean.cuisine-Ganjang_gejang_and_banchan-01.jpg : by LWY at flickr, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
No fixed amounts recordedThe government article used here gives no amounts; the crabs go into the cooled sauce.
Fresh crabs, well washed (blue crab, kkotge)[korea-kr]
Soy sauce, boiled with onion, chilli, kelp and ginger, then cooled[korea-kr]

Total time across the recorded steps: 2 days – 4 days

Start
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What changes: Starting material: fresh blue crabs, washed clean

Step 1 of 4
Wash the fresh crabs
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented

Output: washed raw crabs.

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

Well-washed fresh crabs are put in soy sauce that was boiled with onion, chilli, kelp and ginger and then cooled, and aged two to four days. The crab is eaten raw. It is a marinade more than a ferment, so pathogens and, in freshwater crabs, lung flukes can survive. Made in 4 steps over 2 days – 4 days. The longest step, put the crabs in the cooled sauce and age them, takes 2–4 days (Korea Policy Briefing (Republic of Korea gove…).

Key numbers
Main step2–4 daysReported[korea-kr]Put the crabs in the cooled sauce and age them
Temperature5 °CMeasured[cho2016]Store the marinated crabs cold

What makes this one different

Gejang is raw crab aged for a few days in soy sauce, not a salt-fermented paste like jeotgal.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Yangnyeom gejangCrab tossed on the spot with a seasoning of chilli powder, minced garlic, ginger, soy sauce and pepper, not aged for days.
  • Salt gejangMade with salt instead of soy sauce; the salt draws water out of the crab meat, so it is firmer and chewier.

Safety

Marination is the only antibacterial step, and in trials Listeria, S. aureus, E. coli O157:H7 and Salmonella were still alive on crab kept at 5 °C for 28 days. Freshwater crabs can carry the lung fluke Paragonimus westermani; freezing for 48 h at -20 °C killed all larvae, while soy sauce with 5–10 % salt took 64 days. In crayfish, viable larvae survived 14 days in 10 % salt soy sauce, so a short cold marinade is not enough. CDC says never to eat raw freshwater crabs or crayfish and to cook them to at least 145 °F (about 63 °C). These steps record how the dish is made, not a safe home method.

Hazards the sources name: Paragonimus westermani lung fluke (freshwater crabs and crayfish); Listeria monocytogenes, Staphylococcus aureus, E. coli O157:H7 and Salmonella (survived 28 days of marination at 5 °C); Vibrio parahaemolyticus (a cytotoxic strain was isolated from soy-sauce crab).

History and sources

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

Hong Man-seon (1643–1715) wrote the method for gejang into his Sallim gyeongje, in a soy sauce version and a salt version (Korea Policy Briefing).

Starter
The sources we found do not say how its fermentation begins.
  1. [korea-kr] Korea Policy Briefing (Republic of Korea government), K-local gourmet trip, part 1, Korea's matchless rice-thief, ganjang-gejang (한국의 독보적인 밥도둑, 간장게장), 14 November 2024gov
  2. [cho2016] Cho T.J., Kim N.H., Kim S.A., Song J.H., Rhee M.S. 2016, Survival of foodborne pathogens in raw ready-to-eat crab marinated in soy sauce, International Journal of Food Microbiologypaper
  3. [kim2017] Kim T.I., Oh S.R., Dai F., Yang H.J., Ha S.D., Hong S.J. 2017, Inactivation of Paragonimus westermani metacercariae in soy sauce-marinated and frozen freshwater crabs, Parasitology Research 116(3):1003–1006paper
  4. [kim2025] Kim E.M., Jin Y., Hong S.T. 2025, Survival and infectivity of Paragonimus westermani metacercariae in soy sauce-marinated crayfish, Food and Waterborne Parasitologypaper
  5. [hong2025] Hong Y.J., Kim Y.M., Kim Y.S., Cho T.J., Rhee M.S., Kim S.A. 2025, Microbial community of retail marinated raw crab, LWT (abstract)paper
  6. [chung2018] Chung H.Y., Lee B., Na E.J. et al. 2018, Potential survival and pathogenesis of a novel strain, Vibrio parahaemolyticus FORC_022, isolated from a soy sauce marinated crab, Frontiers in Microbiology 9:1504paper
  7. [cdc-paragonimus] US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2024, About Paragonimiasisgov