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Cereals and bread from Thailand

Khanom chin (Thai fermented rice noodles)ขนมจีน

Indica rice is soaked, left wet in a draining container to sour, then wet-milled and settled for days under 2 % salt water. The sour flour is pressed dry, part-cooked, kneaded and pressed out into boiling water as thin round noodles, sold fresh as wads that look like birds' nests.

Fully documentedCereals and bread5 days – 6 days

Recipe

Khanom chin (Thai fermented rice noodles), a photo from Wikimedia Commons
Photo: User:Mattes, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Amounts from a sourceTraditional process with no fixed batch size or recipe amounts in the sources used here. Some noodle makers buy fermented rice flour from flour producers instead of fermenting their own; in one Bangkok-area case study a factory made about 6,600 kg of flour a day and sold most of it.
RiceIndica rice; the daily rice of one Bangkok-area flour and noodle factory included broken rice[shompoosang2022][kusano2021]
Salt water2 %The milled rice settles under it for two to three days; the water is changed daily[jircas-kj]
WaterFor soaking, washing and kneading[jircas-kj]
Starterspontaneous

Total time across the recorded steps: 5 days – 6 days

Start
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Close-up: water moving into a grain

What changes: Rice soaks overnight and is drained in a sieve

Step 1 of 7
Soak the rice
Time
Overnight
Reported
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Lactic acid bacteria
Lactobacillus
Streptococcus
Lactococcus lactis
Leuconostoc

Output: soaked rice, drained in a sieve container.

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

Indica rice is soaked, left wet in a draining container to sour, then wet-milled and settled for days under 2 % salt water. The sour flour is pressed dry, part-cooked, kneaded and pressed out into boiling water as thin round noodles, sold fresh as wads that look like birds' nests. Made in 7 steps over 5 days – 6 days. The longest step, sour the wet rice (solid-state fermentation), takes at least 3 days (Haard N.F 1999). Salt is 2 % (JIRCAS). Lactobacillus and Streptococcus species in the acid fermentation of the soaked rice and Lactococcus lactis, Leuconostoc (L. citreum, L. lactis, L. pseudomesenteroides), Limosilactobacillus fermentum, Lactiplantibacillus plantarum, L. pentosus, Weissella confusa, Enterococcus faecium do most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main stepat least 3 daysReported[fao1999]Sour the wet rice (solid-state fermentation)
Salt2 %Reported[jircas-kj]Wet-mill and settle under salt water (submerged fermentation)
AciditypH 3.7Measured[jircas2019]Sell fresh

What makes this one different

Khanom chin has two fermentations. The wet rice sours in a draining container, and the milled rice then settles for days under 2 % salt water. The salt-water settling stage sets it apart from Cambodian num banhchok, which is soured as pressed flour cakes in cloth bags.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Bought fermented flourSome noodle makers buy fermented rice flour from flour producers, which trade it on the market, instead of fermenting their own (Kusano 2021, one Bangkok-area case study).
  • Submerged-only fermentationSome producers have replaced the solid-state rice fermentation with submerged fermentation, expecting softer, whiter noodles; in a lab comparison the noodles were 60 % as hard as traditional ones.
  • Fresh-flour khanom chinMade with fresh flour, without the long rice fermentation; Wikipedia says the noodles are bigger and softer than fermented-flour ones, but gives no source.

Safety

Noodles kept acidic (extract pH around 4.0 or lower) did not liquefy, while noodles brought to pH 6.0 or 8.0 were broken down by starch-digesting bacteria within a few days at 37 °C. Producers are advised to check the pH of the washing water, which can be alkaline. JIRCAS says the noodles should be eaten within a few days of being made.

Hazards the sources name: Cronobacter malonaticus and Acinetobacter baumannii (listed among isolates).

History and sources

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

Although chin means "Chinese" in Thai, the noodle is credited to the Mon, and the name is thought to come from the Mon words hanom cin, "boiled noodles". A 2021 study describes khanom jeen producers as small-scale businesses near local markets across Thailand.

  1. [fao1999] Haard N.F., Odunfa S.A., Lee C.-H., Quintero-Ramírez R., Lorence-Quiñones A., Wacher-Radarte C. 1999, Fermented cereals. A global perspective, FAO Agricultural Services Bulletin 138, ch. 3 (citing Rosanaphaiboon 1987)gov
  2. [jircas-kj] JIRCAS, Database of Fermented Foods of Thailand, Kha-nom-jeen (fermented rice noodles)gov
  3. [marui2020] Marui J., Shompoosang S., Panthavee W. 2020, pH-dependent liquefaction of Thai fermented rice noodles (khanom jeen) associated with bacterial amylolytic enzymes, JARQ 54(1):41–45, doi:10.6090/jarq.54.41 (abstract)paper
  4. [jircas2019] Marui J., Yoshihashi T., Shompoosang S., Surojanametakul V. 2019, Liquefaction of Thai fermented rice noodles can be prevented by maintaining the product in acidic condition of pH around 4, JIRCAS Research Highlight 2019 C01gov
  5. [kusano2021] Kusano E., Marui J. and Yoshihashi T. 2021, Basic quality management for improving the business stability of small food enterprises in Southeast Asia, the case of a fermented rice noodle company in Thailand, JARQ 55(3):253–264paper
  6. [shompoosang2022] Shompoosang S., Marui J., Varichanan P., Dueramae S., Panthavee W. 2022, Improving the texture and color of khanomjeen, a Thai fermented rice noodle, using a modified rice fermentation method, Food Science and Technology Research 28(1):95–103, doi:10.3136/fstr.FSTR-D-21-00146 (abstract)paper
  7. [wp] Wikipedia, Khanom chin (name and dishes only)wiki