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Soy and legumes from Myanmar

Nan Phat Shin (fermented sesame or groundnut oil cake)

Nan Phat Shin is the cake left after pressing groundnut or sesame oil, soaked in water, salted and left to sour for three to five days. The souring is probably lactic, though the study that describes it says this still needs confirming. Using old fermented cake as a starter halves the time. It is eaten as a salad with onion, green chilli, coriander and lemon leaves.

Fully documentedSoy and legumes3.4 days – 5.8 days

Recipe

Amounts from a sourceTraditional family practice as described by Bo Bo and Aye Aye Win (2022); only the water is given as a ratio.
Groundnut or sesame oil cake[bobo2022]
Water2–2.5 times the weight of the cake[bobo2022]
SaltA suitable amount[bobo2022]
Onion, green chilli, coriander and lemon leavesTo tasteTo dress it as a salad[bobo2022]
Starterpreviously fermented oil cake used as a starter halves the fermentation time

Total time across the recorded steps: 3.4 days – 5.8 days

Start
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Close-up: water moving into a bean

What changes: Chopped oil cake soaks in 2 to 2.5 times its weight of water until it breaks up

Step 1 of 4
Chop the cake and soak it in water
Time
10–20 h
Reported
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Lactic acid bacteria

Output: oil cake suspended in water.

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

Nan Phat Shin is the cake left after pressing groundnut or sesame oil, soaked in water, salted and left to sour for three to five days. The souring is probably lactic, though the study that describes it says this still needs confirming. Using old fermented cake as a starter halves the time. It is eaten as a salad with onion, green chilli, coriander and lemon leaves. Made in 4 steps over 3.4 days – 5.8 days. The longest step, let it sour, takes 3–5 days (Bo Bo 2022). Lactic acid bacteria and Lactobacillus helveticus do most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step3–5 daysReported[bobo2022]Let it sour
AciditypH 4.4Measured[bobo2022]Let it sour

What makes this one different

Unlike tempeh or oncom, which grow a mould through a cake, Nan Phat Shin is a wet, salted, probably lactic ferment of oil-press cake, closer to a pickle. It had the highest pH of six Myanmar plant ferments in the same study.

Related ferments

Safety

Finished samples were only mildly acid (pH 4.44), and the study did not test for mycotoxins. Peanuts are among the foods with the highest aflatoxin B1 levels in surveys across Southeast Asia (Ab Dullah 2026, with data from four countries, none of them Myanmar), and a 2014 report on Myanmar's edible oil sector notes that aflatoxins remain in groundnut cake after industrial oil processing (Wijnands 2014). Clean, dry cake is not proof against this. WHO says most mycotoxins survive food processing, so souring cannot be counted on to remove them. WHO advises discarding nuts that look mouldy, discoloured or shrivelled, and that goes for the cake too. The source gives no salt amount and no safety test, and this is eaten uncooked, so treat it as a record of practice, not a tested home method.

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.
  1. [who-mycotoxins] World Health Organization, Mycotoxins (fact sheet)gov
  2. [bobo2022] Bo Bo, Aye Aye Win 2022, Myanmar popular plant-based fermented foods, their processing, and their microorganisms potential for probiotics, Bacterial Empire 5(3):e430paper
  3. [abdullah2026] Ab Dullah S.S. et al. 2026, A scoping review and risk assessment of aflatoxin B1 contamination in rice, maize, and peanut-based products across selected ASEAN countries, Foods 15(11):1874paper
  4. [wijnands2014] Wijnands J.H.M., Biersteker J., Hagedoorn L.F., Louisse J. 2014, Business opportunities and food safety of the Myanmar edible oil sector, LEI Report 2014-036, LEI Wageningen UR, doi:10.13140/2.1.3064.2246 (section on groundnuts)other