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Fish and seafood from Northern China

Fish jiang (作魚醬法) and its variants魚醬

A 6th-century Qimin Yaoshu recipe for fish jiang, a paste of boned, thinly sliced fish fermented with huangyi (a mould-grown grain starter), salt, dried ginger and orange peel. The mix is mud-sealed in a jar and set in the sun, and the ripe jiang is thinned with good wine to serve. This entry is a reading of the text; the book gives amounts but no ripening time for the main recipe.

Fully documentedFish and seafood14 days

Recipe

Amounts from a sourceAmounts are the recipe's own, in the text's units (dou, sheng, ge; the text does not state how they convert), per dou of prepared fish.
Fish, scaled, washed, wiped dry, sliced thinly and boned1 dou[qmys-ws]
Huangyi (yellow coat)3 sheng (1 sheng whole, 2 sheng powdered)[qmys-ws]
White salt2 shengYellow salt makes it bitter. The Siku quanshu transcription reads 2 jin here, not 2 sheng.[qmys-ws][qmys-siku]
Dried ginger1 sheng, powdered[qmys-ws]
Orange peel1 ge, finely shredded[qmys-ws]
Starterhuangyi (黃衣), a mould-grown grain starter made in chapter 68

Total time across the recorded steps: 14 days

Start
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What changes: The fish is scaled, wiped dry, boned and sliced into thin shreds

Step 1 of 5
Scale, dry and slice the fish thinly, boned
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented

Output: thin fish shreds; small 鱭 and 鮐 fish are left whole.

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

A 6th-century Qimin Yaoshu recipe for fish jiang, a paste of boned, thinly sliced fish fermented with huangyi (a mould-grown grain starter), salt, dried ginger and orange peel. The mix is mud-sealed in a jar and set in the sun, and the ripe jiang is thinned with good wine to serve. This entry is a reading of the text; the book gives amounts but no ripening time for the main recipe. Made in 5 steps over 14 days. The longest step, variant, dried 鱭 fish jiang: mud-seal and ripen, takes 14 days (Jia Sixie 2026).

Key numbers
Main step14 daysReported[qmys-ws][qmys-siku]Variant, dried 鱭 fish jiang: mud-seal and ripen

What makes this one different

The fish jiang ferments with a mould starter (huangyi or qu), not with cooked rice as zha does, so it is closer to a jiang made from beans or meat than to a fish-and-rice ferment.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Dried 鱭 (Coilia) fish jiang (乾鱭魚醬法)6th–7th month; dried fish soaked indoors for 3 days, water changed 3 times a day; per dou of fish 4 sheng qu powder, 1 sheng huangzheng powder (or malt powder), 2.5 sheng white salt; mud-sealed in a jar; ripe in 14 days (二七日), and 'no different from fresh'.
  • One-day fish jiang (又魚醬法)1 dou sliced fish, 5 sheng qu, 2 sheng clear wine, 3 sheng salt and 2 pieces of orange peel, sealed in a bottle; edible after 1 day.
  • Shrimp jiang (作蝦醬法)1 dou shrimp, 3 sheng cooked rice, 2 sheng salt and 5 sheng water, set in the sun; the text says it does not spoil through spring and summer.

Safety

The text's own rule: jiang made in the 12th month has no worms through summer; made in other months it tends to breed worms and does not last the summer. That rule is about worms, not botulism. Fish mud-sealed airtight in a jar gives the low-oxygen conditions C. botulinum needs, and WHO names fermented fish among foods that have carried its toxin. The keeping and eating times in the variants are the text's claims, not tested limits. Read this page as history, not as a tested method to copy.

History and sources

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

Qimin Yaoshu (6th century), vol. 8, ch. 70 作醬法. The chapter also quotes Cui Shi's calendar, which places fish jiang making at the turn of the 6th and 7th months.

Microbes
No study we found names its microbes.
Temperature, salt and pH
The 6th-century Qimin Yaoshu gives no temperature, salt percentage or pH figure for the main recipe, and no study we found has measured it.
  1. [who-botulism] World Health Organization, Botulism, fact sheetgov
  2. [qmys-ws] Jia Sixie, Qimin Yaoshu (6th century), vol. 8, ch. 70 作醬法 (作魚醬法, 乾鱭魚醬法, 又魚醬法, 作蝦醬法); Chinese text on Wikisource (齊民要術/卷第八), read 2026-10archive
  3. [qmys-siku] Jia Sixie, Qimin Yaoshu, Siku quanshu edition, juan 8, 作魚醬法 and 乾鱭魚醬法, transcription on Chinese Wikisource (齊民要術 (四庫全書本)/卷08), read 2026-10-31; its salt amount for the main recipe reads 2 jin, where the other transcription reads 2 shengarchive
  4. [wiki-qmys] Wikipedia, Qimin Yaoshu (outline of the book and its author, Jia Sixie)wiki