Skip to main content
Support

Browse by category

All categories
Home

Fruit from Thailand

Look-tor-dorng (brine-pickled unripe peach)ลูกท้อดอง

Look-tor-dorng is unripe local peach soured in a strong 23 % salt brine. The fruit is packed in a jar, covered with brine, held down with a bag of the same brine and left closed in the shade for 5 to 7 days. It may then be soaked in syrup and sun-dried.

Fully documentedFruit6 days – 9 days

Recipe

Amounts from a sourceHome method from the JIRCAS Thai fermented-food card; only the brine strength is fixed, not the batch size.
Unripe peaches (local variety)Washed and drained[jircas]
Salt brine23 % solutionEnough to cover the fruit, plus a plastic bag of the same brine as a weight[jircas]
Heavy syrup, 40 % BrixOptionalFor the sweet version[jircas]

Total time across the recorded steps: 6 days – 9 days

Start
Drag the bar or press Play

What changes: Starting material: unripe peaches, washed and packed in a jar

Step 1 of 4
Wash, drain and pack the peaches
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

Look-tor-dorng is unripe local peach soured in a strong 23 % salt brine. The fruit is packed in a jar, covered with brine, held down with a bag of the same brine and left closed in the shade for 5 to 7 days. It may then be soaked in syrup and sun-dried. Made in 4 steps over 6 days – 9 days. The longest step, close and ferment in the shade, takes 5–7 days (JIRCAS 2026). Salt is 23 % (JIRCAS 2026).

Key numbers
Main step5–7 daysReported[jircas]Close and ferment in the shade
Salt23 %Reported[jircas]Cover with 23 % brine and weigh down
AciditypH up to 3.5Set[tcps160]Close and ferment in the shade

What makes this one different

Look-tor-dorng uses a strong, fixed 23 % brine and a bag of the same brine as the weight, so the weight cannot dilute the pickle. Like buay-dorng, it is soured under brine in a closed jar in the shade.

Related ferments

Safety

Thailand's community standard for pickled fruit requires pH 3.5 or below, total microbes at most 1 × 10^4 per gram, no Staphylococcus aureus in 0.1 g, E. coli below 3 per gram (MPN) and yeasts and moulds at most 100 per gram, and bans synthetic colours and borax. A survey of commercial dried peach pickles found benzoic acid a little above 0.1 % in some samples and advised keeping such moist products below 4 °C.

Hazards the sources name: Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli (the pickled-fruit standard sets limits for both).

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. [jircas] JIRCAS, Database of Fermented Foods of Thailand: Look-tor-dorng (brine pickled unripe peach), read 2026-10-23gov
  2. [tcps160] Thai Industrial Standards Institute 2003, Thai Community Product Standard มผช.160/2546, Pickled fruit (phonlamai dong) (copy on archive.org)spec
  3. [trongpanich2008] Trongpanich K., Stonsaovapak S., Puminat W., Yunchalad M. 2008, Quality determination of Thai dried pickled fruits and vegetables, Acta Horticulturae 787 (abstract)paper