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Fish and seafood from Thailand

Hoi-kraeng-dorngหอยแครงดอง

Hoi-kraeng-dorng is whole blood cockles cured in first-grade fish sauce in a closed earthen jar for 4 to 5 days. The meat turns dark brown and salty and is eaten raw with ginger, shallot and chilli. An older sour version packs the meat with salt for 15 to 20 days, but it is now rare.

Fully documentedFish and seafood4 days – 5 days

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedThe JIRCAS database (after The Traditional Fermented Foods of Thailand, 1995) gives no fixed amounts for the fish-sauce version; the cockles are simply covered. The rare sour version uses meat and salt 3:1 by weight.
Whole blood cockles in the shellenough to fill the jarWashed, drained and air-dried for about 30 minutes[jircas-hoikraeng]
First-grade fish sauceenough to cover the cockles[jircas-hoikraeng]

Total time across the recorded steps: 4 days – 5 days

Start
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What changes: The whole cockles are washed, drained and left to dry for about 30 minutes

Step 1 of 4
Wash, drain and air-dry the cockles
Time
30 min
Reported
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented

Output: clean, dry whole cockles.

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

Hoi-kraeng-dorng is whole blood cockles cured in first-grade fish sauce in a closed earthen jar for 4 to 5 days. The meat turns dark brown and salty and is eaten raw with ginger, shallot and chilli. An older sour version packs the meat with salt for 15 to 20 days, but it is now rare. Made in 4 steps over 4 days – 5 days. The longest step, cure in the shade, takes 4–5 days (JIRCAS 1995).

Key numbers
Main step4–5 daysReported[jircas-hoikraeng]Cure in the shade

What makes this one different

Hoi-kraeng-dorng is cured whole in fish sauce for only a few days. Hoi-siap-dorng uses the same fish-sauce cure on wedge clams for 2 to 3 days, while hoi-ma-laeng-poo-dorng and hoi-som salt shelled meat and let it ferment.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Sour salted hoi-kraeng-dorng (rare)The meat is mixed with salt 3:1 by weight (about 25 % salt, worked out from the ratio), held under the brine with bamboo sticks and fermented in a closed jar in the shade for 15–20 days; longer makes it too sour.

Safety

The Thai community product standard for pickled shellfish (หอยดอง) requires no Salmonella in 25 g, no Staphylococcus aureus in 0.1 g, no Clostridium perfringens in 0.01 g, E. coli below 3 MPN per gram and no more than 100 mould colonies per gram. It bans preservatives and synthetic colours and limits lead to 1 mg/kg, mercury to 0.5 mg/kg and arsenic to 2 mg/kg. The cockles are eaten raw, and fresh, clean cockles can still carry Vibrio, which lives naturally in coastal water. In a survey of 84 blood cockle samples from Bangkok fresh markets (2018–2019), 78 % carried Vibrio parahaemolyticus, the highest share of any seafood in the survey. No source we found shows that 4–5 days in fish sauce removes it. CDC says most Vibrio infections come from raw or undercooked shellfish and advises cooking seafood before eating it. Liver disease, cancer, diabetes and HIV raise the risk of severe illness. Hong Kong's Centre for Food Safety says cockles and other bivalves also concentrate hepatitis A virus from sewage-polluted water, and it advises boiling all shellfish for at least five minutes before eating. This page records a practice and is not a safe recipe.

Hazards the sources name: Salmonella (must be absent in 25 g), Staphylococcus aureus (absent in 0.1 g) and Clostridium perfringens (absent in 0.01 g), with Escherichia coli below 3 MPN per g, under the Thai community standard for pickled shellfish (หอยดอง), whose definition covers whole shellfish pickled in fish sauce.

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.
Starter
The sources we found do not say how its fermentation begins.
Temperature, salt and pH
The sources we found give no temperature, salt or pH figure for any of its steps.
  1. [jircas-hoikraeng] JIRCAS, Database of Fermented Foods of Thailand: Hoi-kraeng-dorng (after The Traditional Fermented Foods of Thailand, 1995)gov
  2. [tcps320] Thai Industrial Standards Institute, Thai Community Product Standard มผช.320/2547, Pickled shellfish (หอยดอง) (copy on archive.org)spec
  3. [atwill2021] Atwill, Jeamsripong and LaMontagne, 2021, Bacterial diversity and potential risk factors associated with Salmonella contamination of seafood products sold in retail markets in Bangkok, Thailand, PeerJ 9:e12694paper
  4. [cdc-vibrio] US CDC, Preventing Vibrio infectiongov
  5. [cdc-vibrio-about] US CDC, About Vibrio infection (people at risk)gov
  6. [cfs-hav] Centre for Food Safety, Hong Kong, Hepatitis A virus in shellfishgov