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Meat from Indonesia

Ni'owuruni'owuru

Ni'owuru is a Nias way of keeping pork by salting it. Slices of pork, often the share of pork left over from a feast, are soaked in salted water for 8 to 12 hours or more and stored; the meat turns a little hard and dry and very salty. It is a salt cure, a boundary entry with no fermentation recorded.

A short entry: the sources we found record only what is said here about Ni'owuru itself.

Short entryMeat8 h – 12 h

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedNo source gives amounts.
Pork, cut into slices neither too thin nor too thick[wiki-id-niowuru]
Salt and water (brine), and pork fat or lard[wiki-id-niowuru]

Total time across the recorded steps: 8 h – 12 h

Start
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What changes: The pork is cut into slices of medium thickness

Step 1 of 3
Slice the pork
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

Ni'owuru is a Nias way of keeping pork by salting it. Slices of pork, often the share of pork left over from a feast, are soaked in salted water for 8 to 12 hours or more and stored; the meat turns a little hard and dry and very salty. It is a salt cure, a boundary entry with no fermentation recorded. Made in 3 steps over 8 h – 12 h. The longest step, soak in brine, takes 8–12 h (Indonesian Wikipedia).

Key numbers
Main step8–12 hReported[wiki-id-niowuru]Soak in brine

What makes this one different

Ni'owuru is a brine cure of pork slices with no fermentation recorded. Siraw, from Taiwan, is salted pork that some makers sour with rice or millet wine.

Related ferments

Safety

The source gives no brine strength, yet says the meat keeps for months or even years, so do not copy this as a long-keeping method. WHO says homemade preserved foods are a common source of botulism, and lists meat products such as ham among the foods where botulinum toxin has been found.

History and sources

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

Pork is the most valued domestic animal on Nias and is shared at feasts and weddings; ni'owuru kept the surplus. Indonesian Wikipedia says it is now rare, as refrigerators replace it.

  1. [wiki-id-niowuru] Indonesian Wikipedia, Ni'owuruwiki
  2. [wiki-list-fermented] Wikipedia, List of fermented foods (entry Ni'owuru, "fermented pork dish from Nias")wiki
  3. [who-botulism] World Health Organization, Botulism, fact sheetgov