Skip to main content
Support

Browse by category

All categories
Home

Fish and seafood from Cambodia

Pha-ork (Cambodian fish fermented with carbohydrate)ផ្អក

Pha-ork is Cambodian freshwater fish fermented with salt and a carbohydrate. It is much less salty than prahok (mean 8.65 % salt against 21.2 % in one market survey). The small-fish form, Pha-ork Kontrey, has a low salt content and a short ferment of a few days at room temperature; paork chav, made with brown glutinous rice, is stored at room temperature for up to a year, says a 2020 paper that expects more biogenic amines in such products.

Fully documentedFish and seafood2 days – 5 days

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedNo source gives a recipe with amounts. The numbers below describe 64 market samples (Chrun et al. 2023), a small-fish starter trial (Chrun et al. 2020) and 7 market samples of paork chav (Ly et al. 2020).
Freshwater fishFreshwater fish are listed for paork chav in the Ly et al. market survey[ly2020]
Salt[chrun2023]
A carbohydrateBrown glutinous rice in paork chav[chrun2023][ly2019][ly2020]
Startermostly spontaneous, as for Cambodian fermented fish in general (Chrun et al. 2023); a Lactobacillus plantarum starter was tested for Pha-ork Kontrey

Total time across the recorded steps: 2 days – 5 days

Start
Drag the bar or press Play
Close-up: salt moving into a fish

What changes: Salt draws water out of the cleaned fish

Step 1 of 5
Salt the fish
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Lactic acid bacteria
L. acidipiscis
Lactobacillus plantarum
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

Pha-ork is Cambodian freshwater fish fermented with salt and a carbohydrate. It is much less salty than prahok (mean 8.65 % salt against 21.2 % in one market survey). The small-fish form, Pha-ork Kontrey, has a low salt content and a short ferment of a few days at room temperature; paork chav, made with brown glutinous rice, is stored at room temperature for up to a year, says a 2020 paper that expects more biogenic amines in such products. Made in 5 steps over 2 days – 5 days. The longest step, ferment at room temperature, takes 2–5 days (Chrun R 2020) and runs at 28–32 °C (Chrun R 2020). Salt is 9–14 % (Ly D 2020). Lactobacillus plantarum strains isolated from other fermented fish, tested as a starter culture for Pha-ork Kontrey and Lactobacillus acidipiscis do most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step2–5 daysMeasured[chrun2020]Ferment at room temperature
Temperature28–32 °CMeasured[chrun2020]Ferment at room temperature
Salt9–14 %Measured[ly2020]Room-temperature storage (paork chav)
AciditypH 3.9–6.2Measured[chrun2023]Finished pha-ork at market

What makes this one different

Pha-ork has far less salt than prahok (mean 8.65 % against 21.2 % in the same survey) and adds a carbohydrate; its mean pH was 4.86 against 6.17 for prahok.

Related ferments

Safety

Many Enterobacteriaceae from Cambodian fermented foods, E. coli among them, could still grow at 8 % salt, but most could not survive at pH 4 or below (Chrun et al. 2023). E. coli was found in a third of market pha-ork samples. In a trial, a Lactobacillus plantarum starter cut spiked E. coli and S. aureus in 48 h instead of 120 h (Chrun et al. 2020). Histamine was high in paork chav, 32–840 ppm in seven samples, and four of the seven were above 400 ppm, the EU limit for fishery products that undergo enzyme maturation in brine, which the authors cite. Two reached 500 ppm or more, a level the authors link to outbreaks (Ly et al. 2020). Those samples were tested after storage at 4 °C, and the authors expect more biogenic amines in products kept at room temperature. Cook pha-ork before eating, as is usual for Cambodian fermented fish (Ly et al. 2020), though the FDA says heat cannot remove histamine once it has formed. Botulism is rare but can be fatal (WHO), and no source we read tested pha-ork for C. botulinum itself. Sulfite-reducing clostridia, proposed as a marker of that risk, reached 9 × 10^4 cfu/g in paork chav, though the authors judged the microbes they found acceptable (Ly et al. 2020). WHO names fermented fish among foods that have carried botulinum toxin. This mix stays packed at room temperature. For fish kept unrefrigerated, the FDA's limits that stop C. botulinum include pH 4.6 or below and water activity 0.85 or below. Market samples averaged pH 4.86 and water activity 0.81 but ran as high as pH 6.17 and 0.94 (Chrun et al. 2023). Acid does not remove toxin already formed. Heat can destroy it, with boiling for 10 minutes as the FDA's example, but the FDA says not to rely on that because the toxin is so potent. Liver fluke occurs in Cambodia, and a review of Thai cases names fish preserved under 7 days as a likely source.

Hazards the sources name: Escherichia coli in 33 % of 64 market samples; Staphylococcus aureus (spiked into Pha-ork Kontrey in a starter trial); Histamine at 32–840 ppm in seven paork chav samples; the study measured the histamine and did not identify which bacteria formed it.

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.
  1. [chrun2023] Chrun R., Mith H., Meng S., Long S., Born P., Inatsu Y. 2023, Assessing prevalence and antibiotic resistance of Escherichia coli and other Enterobacteriaceae isolated from Cambodian fermented fish and vegetables, JARQ 57(4):311–320paper
  2. [chrun2020] Chrun R., Born P., Huon T., Buntong B., Chay C., Inatsu Y. 2020, Application of lactic acid bacteria for enhanced food safety of Cambodian fermented small fish (Pha-ork Kontrey), Food Science and Technology Research 26(6):687–694, doi 10.3136/fstr.26.687 (abstract)paper
  3. [ly2020] Ly D., Mayrhofer S., Schmidt J.-M., Zitz U., Domig K.J. 2020, Biogenic amine contents and microbial characteristics of Cambodian fermented foods, Foods 9(2):198, doi 10.3390/foods9020198paper
  4. [ly2019] Ly D., Mayrhofer S., Agung Yogeswara I.B., Nguyen T.-H., Domig K.J. 2019, Identification, classification and screening for γ-amino-butyric acid production in lactic acid bacteria from Cambodian fermented foods, Biomolecules 9(12):768, doi 10.3390/biom9120768paper
  5. [who-botulism] World Health Organization, Botulism, fact sheetgov
  6. [fda-ch7] US Food and Drug Administration, Fish and Fishery Products Hazards and Controls Guidance, Chapter 7, Scombrotoxin (Histamine) Formationgov
  7. [fda-ch13] US Food and Drug Administration, Fish and Fishery Products Hazards and Controls Guidance, Chapter 13, Clostridium botulinum Toxin Formationgov
  8. [kaewpitoon2008] Kaewpitoon N., Kaewpitoon S.J., Pengsaa P. 2008, Opisthorchiasis in Thailand, review and current status, World J. Gastroenterol. 14(15):2297–2302paper