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Fish and seafood from Korea

Ojingeo-jeot오징어젓

Ojingeo-jeot is squid that is cleaned, salted and left to ripen, then cut into strips and seasoned with chilli and garlic. Traditional jeotgal is salted at 15–25 %; a 1993 study found the seasoned squid jeotgal made in Korea at only about 8 % salt, which needed careful handling in distribution.

Fully documentedFish and seafood41 daysFamily: Jeotgal (Korean salted fermented seafood)

Recipe

Ojingeo-jeot, a photo from Wikimedia Commons
Photo: Hyeon-Jeong Suk, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Amounts from a sourceNo source gives a full recipe; the salt levels are from studies of commercial and trial products.
Squid, skinned, gutted and washed[wp-ojingeo]
SaltAbout 8 % in commercial seasoned squid jeotgal; 3–5 % in low-salt trials[kim1993][lee2012]
Red pepper powder, garlic and other seasonings[wp-ojingeo]

Total time across the recorded steps: 41 days

Start
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What changes: Starting material: squid, skinned, gutted and washed

Step 1 of 4
Skin, gut and wash the squid
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Leuconostoc
Bacillus
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

Ojingeo-jeot is squid that is cleaned, salted and left to ripen, then cut into strips and seasoned with chilli and garlic. Traditional jeotgal is salted at 15–25 %; a 1993 study found the seasoned squid jeotgal made in Korea at only about 8 % salt, which needed careful handling in distribution. Made in 4 steps over 41 days. The longest step, salt and ripen, takes 41 days (Lee K.G 2012) and runs at -1–10 °C (Lee K.G 2012). Salt is 3–5 % (Lee K.G 2012). Leuconostoc does most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step41 daysMeasured[lee2012]Salt and ripen
Temperature-1–10 °CReported[lee2012]Salt and ripen
Salt3–5 %Reported[lee2012]Salt and ripen
AciditypH up to 5Measured[lee2012]Keep cold

What makes this one different

Traditional jeotgal is made with 15–20 % salt (Lee 2012) or about 25 % (Kim 1993). The seasoned squid jeotgal in Kim's 1993 study had only about 8 % salt, so it needed careful handling when sold.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Low-salt squid jeotgal (3–5 % salt)Kept 23 to 52 days depending on salt and storage temperature; quality close to commercial high-salt squid jeotgal.

Safety

Low-salt squid jeotgal is perishable. A study of seasoned squid jeotgal with about 8 % salt estimated its shelf life at about 3 days at 30 °C, 7 days at 20 °C and 25 days at 10 °C, so keep it refrigerated. Those figures are for spoilage and do not cover parasites. Japan's health ministry lists squid among seafood that carries Anisakis worm larvae, which can burrow into the stomach or gut wall. It says ordinary salting does not kill them, and it advises freezing at -20 °C for at least 24 hours. Nothing in these steps cooks the squid.

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.
  1. [kim1993] Kim D.S., Kim Y.M., Koo J.G., Lee Y.C., Do J.R. 1993, A study on shelf-life of seasoned and fermented squid, Korean Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 26(1):13–20 (abstract)paper
  2. [lee2012] Lee K.G., Kim S.M. 2012, Quality changes in low-salted squid jeot-gal during fermentation and determination of shelf-life, Journal of the Korean Society of Food Science and Nutrition 41(5):687–694 (abstract)paper
  3. [jung2013] Jung J., Choi S., Jeon C.O., Park W. 2013, Pyrosequencing-based analysis of the bacterial community in Korean traditional seafood, ojingeo jeotgal, J. Microbiol. Biotechnol. 23(10):1428–1433, doi:10.4014/jmb.1305.05018 (abstract)paper
  4. [wp-ojingeo] Wikipedia, Ojingeo-jeot (preparation outline only)wiki
  5. [mhlw-anisakis] Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, Japan, アニサキスによる食中毒を予防しましょう (preventing Anisakis food poisoning)gov