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Sauces and condiments from Myanmar

Ngan-pya-yeငါးငံပြာရည်

Burmese fish sauce. It began as the liquid that seeps from salted fish and fish paste (ngapi), and since 1956 it has also been made in factories. In the Burmese sack method, small sea fish salted at 30 % of their weight are stacked in jute sacks so the weight presses out the juice, which is aged 2–6 months in concrete tanks, blended and bottled.

Fully documentedSauces and condiments2.2 months – 6.2 months

Recipe

Amounts from a sourceProportions from one private factory near Yangon founded in 1974; salt is given as a share of fish weight.
Small sea fish, about 12 cm or less100 parts by weightCaught December to July off the Andaman Sea coast[ishige1987]
Salt30 parts by weight30 % of the fish weight for sea fish; 40 % for freshwater fish; more is added if the fish look soft[ishige1987]
Starterspontaneous

Total time across the recorded steps: 2.2 months – 6.2 months

Start
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Salt 30–40 %

What changes: Small sea fish are mixed with salt at the port and packed into jute sacks

Step 1 of 4
Salt the fish at the landing port
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
30–40 %
Reported
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Tetragenococcus

Output: salted fish in sacks.

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

Burmese fish sauce. It began as the liquid that seeps from salted fish and fish paste (ngapi), and since 1956 it has also been made in factories. In the Burmese sack method, small sea fish salted at 30 % of their weight are stacked in jute sacks so the weight presses out the juice, which is aged 2–6 months in concrete tanks, blended and bottled. Made in 4 steps over 2.2 months – 6.2 months. The longest step, age the juice in tanks, takes 2–6 months (Ishige N 1987). Salt is 30–40 % (Ishige N 1987). Tetragenococcus muriaticus and Halanaerobium do most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step2–6 monthsReported[ishige1987]Age the juice in tanks
Salt30–40 %Reported[ishige1987]Salt the fish at the landing port
AciditypH 6.9–7.1Measured[mizutani1988]Blend and bottle by grade

What makes this one different

The sack press is a Burmese method. Fish salted at the port are pressed by their own stacked weight, so the juice is drawn off in about a week and aged in tanks, rather than the whole fish fermenting for months in the vessel as in nam pla or nuoc mam.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Traditional by-productThe liquid seeping from ngapi jars or boxes, aged about a year in jars by commercial makers or spooned out at home. A 1982 freshwater sample (ngapiyekyan) read pH 5.4, NaCl 28.6 g/dl and total N 1.43 g/dl.
  • Hmyin-ngan-pya-yeShrimp sauce, sold bottled.

Safety

Three grades of sauce from one factory (1982 samples) held 29.0–30.3 g/dl salt, which keeps most microbes down; four brands of bottled shrimp sauce still held 10^2–10^5 cfu/ml of salt-loving lactic bacteria. In one snakehead mudfish sauce made for a Myanmar university study, salt was 28.77 % w/w, E. coli was not detected, and counts were 2 × 10^3 cfu/L for yeast and mould and 15 × 10^3 cfu/L in the total plate count. Fish sauce can also hold histamine, which forms when bacteria act on some fish, and once formed it is not removed by heat. Codex sets a limit of 40 mg per 100 g for fish sauce.

History and sources

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

Traditional ngan-pya-ye was a by-product of freshwater fish ngapi. Bottled factory sauce from sea fish began in 1956 and made fish sauce far more common in Burmese cooking. Cheap catches from motor boats after the Second World War made the factories possible.

  1. [ishige1987] Ishige N., Ruddle K. 1987, Gyoshō in Southeast Asia (Study of Fermented Aquatic Products 5), Bulletin of the National Museum of Ethnology 12(2), pp. 281–283 (Burma section), doi:10.15021/00004346paper
  2. [mizutani1988] Mizutani T., Kimizuka A., Ruddle K., Ishige N. 1988, A chemical analysis of fermented fish products (Study of Fermented Aquatic Products 6), Bulletin of the National Museum of Ethnology 12(3), table 3paper
  3. [maas2020] Su Wai Phyo, Thwe Linn Ko and Khin Thet Ni 2020, Studies on the quality improvement of fermented fish sauce by treating with adsorption technique, Journal of the Myanmar Academy of Arts and Science 18(1C):275–282paper
  4. [kobayashi2020] Kobayashi T. et al. 2020, Microbiological properties of Myanmar traditional shrimp sauce, hmyin-ngan-pya-ye, Fisheries Science 86:551–560, doi:10.1007/s12562-020-01415-3 (abstract)paper
  5. [codex302] Codex Alimentarius Commission, Standard for Fish Sauce, CXS 302-2011 (amended 2012, 2013), FAO/WHOspec
  6. [fda-ch7] US Food and Drug Administration, Fish and Fishery Products Hazards and Controls Guidance, chapter 7, Scombrotoxin (histamine) formationgov
  7. [wp] Wikipedia, Fish sauce (Myanmar section)wiki