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Meat from Thailand

Nang-khemหนังเค็ม

Nang-khem is northeast Thai salted buffalo or cow skin. In the traditional method the skin is cut into strips, mixed with plenty of salt and buried for two to three days in a pit lined with banana leaves and rice husk, then pounded soft and dried in the sun. The Thai community product standard describes a brine-soaked, salted and dried skin with water activity no higher than 0.6.

Fully documentedMeat2 days – 3 days

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedNo source gives amounts; the skin is mixed with more salt than it can take up.
Buffalo or cow skinWashed and cut into long pieces 2–3 cm wide[jircas-nangkhem][tcps-nangkhem]
Salt, in excess[jircas-nangkhem]
Rice husk and banana leavesTo line and cover the pit; the standard also allows rolling the skin in bran or fine husk[jircas-nangkhem][tcps-nangkhem]

Total time across the recorded steps: 2 days – 3 days

Start
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What changes: The buffalo skin is washed and cut into long strips

Step 1 of 5
Wash and cut the skin into strips
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
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

Nang-khem is northeast Thai salted buffalo or cow skin. In the traditional method the skin is cut into strips, mixed with plenty of salt and buried for two to three days in a pit lined with banana leaves and rice husk, then pounded soft and dried in the sun. The Thai community product standard describes a brine-soaked, salted and dried skin with water activity no higher than 0.6. Made in 5 steps over 2 days – 3 days. The longest step, bury in a husk-lined pit, takes 2–3 days (JIRCAS 1995).

Key numbers
Main step2–3 daysReported[jircas-nangkhem]Bury in a husk-lined pit

What makes this one different

Nang-khem is skin, not meat, and its short buried stage is followed by pounding and sun-drying, so it ends as a dry, salty product rather than a moist, sour one. The community standard counts a sour taste as a defect.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Community-standard nang-khemSkin washed, soaked in brine until soft, washed again, mixed with salt and seasoning, maybe rolled in bran or fine husk, cut and dried by sun or other heat.
  • Nakhon Phanom workshop method (as told by one maker)The maker says he cuts buffalo skin into strips about 2 cm wide, cures them in brine mixed with rice bran to reduce the raw smell, then dries them in the sun or over fire and chops them to length. He says the product keeps for a year and that cow skin is too thin to use [matichon2017].

Safety

Thai community product standard TCPS 1033-2548 sets water activity at no more than 0.6, a total count of at most 1 × 10^4 per g, bans synthetic colours and preservatives, and asks labels to advise dry storage and cooking before eating.

History and sources

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

Made at home in the northeast. JIRCAS notes it is not popular because the process is complicated and the product expensive. A 2017 Matichon news clip reports a maker in Tha Uthen district, Nakhon Phanom, who had sold it for nearly 40 years, starting from home trial and error and selling first within the village before moving to standardised production [matichon2017].

Starter
The sources we found do not say how its fermentation begins.
Microbes
No study we found names its microbes.
Temperature, salt and pH
The sources we found give no temperature, salt or pH figure for any of its steps.
  1. [jircas-nangkhem] JIRCAS, Database of Fermented Foods of Thailand: Nang-khem (after The Traditional Fermented Foods of Thailand, 1995)gov
  2. [tcps-nangkhem] Thai Industrial Standards Institute 2005, Thai Community Product Standard TCPS 1033-2548 (มผช.๑๐๓๓/๒๕๔๘), Dried salted cow's skin (หนังเค็ม), copy on the Internet Archivespec
  3. [matichon2017] Matichon 2017-11-14, Buffalo-hide nang-khem from local wisdom earns a hundred thousand a month (หนังควายเค็ม จากภูมิปัญญาชาวบ้าน รายได้เดือนละเป็นแสน), news clip, interview with a maker in Tha Uthen district, Nakhon Phanomweb