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Fish and seafood from Japan

Urukaうるか

Uruka is shiokara made from ayu (sweetfish), packed with salt alone. Ikiji uruka is the fresh guts and salt aged for three years or more, and mi uruka adds the flesh for a milder taste. The finished uruka is very salty, about 13 g salt per 100 g.

Fully documentedFish and seafood3 years

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedA traditional method with no fixed amounts given; MAFF names only ayu and salt.
Fresh ayu guts (and flesh for mi uruka)[maff-uruka]
SaltSalt is the only other ingredient[maff-uruka]

Total time across the recorded steps: 3 years

Start
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What changes: Starting material: ayu that return upriver in spring and are fished from May or June

Step 1 of 4
Catch ayu in the river season
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Lactic acid bacteria

Ayu hatch in autumn, go to sea, and return upriver at 5–10 cm in March to May; fishing opens in May to June. Output: fresh river ayu.

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

Uruka is shiokara made from ayu (sweetfish), packed with salt alone. Ikiji uruka is the fresh guts and salt aged for three years or more, and mi uruka adds the flesh for a milder taste. The finished uruka is very salty, about 13 g salt per 100 g. Made in 4 steps over 3 years. The longest step, age (ikiji uruka), takes at least 3 years (Ministry of Agriculture 2026). Salt is 13 % (MEXT 2020). Staphylococcus subgroup II (Baird-Parker), dominant in lab-made squid shiokara (ika-shiokara), a related shiokara; no study we found names the bacteria in uruka itself does most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main stepat least 3 yearsReported[maff-uruka]Age (ikiji uruka)
Salt13 %Measured[mext2020]Pack with salt only
AciditypH up to 6Measured[ioka1989]Age (ikiji uruka)

What makes this one different

Uruka is made from a river fish, the ayu, where most shiokara use sea squid, bonito or sea cucumber guts. Ikiji uruka is aged for years, far longer than squid shiokara.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Ikiji uruka (生地うるか)Fresh guts and salt only, aged three years or more.
  • Mi uruka (身うるか)Guts and flesh with salt, for a milder taste.

Safety

Uruka relies on heavy salt, about 13 g per 100 g in the finished product in the MEXT food composition table; two gut uruka bought in Masuda in 1989 held 16.1–17.9 g per 100 g. A Shimane survey of those market samples found crude fat of 11.3–23.0 % in gut uruka and said lipid oxidation needs attention for them (Ioka 1989). Uruka is salted, not cooked. CDC says people catch the intestinal fluke Metagonimus yokogawai by eating undercooked or salted fish from fresh or brackish water that carry its cysts. The CDC page does not name ayu or uruka, so this is a general hazard of salted fish from such waters, not a finding about uruka.

History and sources

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

A 1568 record in the Masuda family papers lists ayu and uruka in the banquet that the Masuda lords served when they visited Mōri Motonari at Yoshida-Kōriyama castle; the fish probably came from the Takatsu and Hikimi rivers.

Starter
The sources we found do not say how its fermentation begins.
  1. [maff-uruka] Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF), Nippon dentōshoku zukan (traditional foods of Japan), Uruka, Shimane Prefecture, read 2026-10gov
  2. [mext2020] MEXT 2020, Standard Tables of Food Composition in Japan 2020 (eighth revised edition), food 10029, ayu, urukagov
  3. [mori1983] Mori K., Shinano H., Akiba M. 1983, Studies on the microorganisms in salted and ripened squid meat product (Ika-shiokara) IV, Bulletin of the Faculty of Fisheries, Hokkaido University 34(4):355-360paper
  4. [ioka1989] Ioka H. 1989, "Uruka" no hinshitsu kairyō shiken, shihan seihin no ippan seijō to seikinsū (Quality improvement trial of uruka, general properties and viable counts of market products), Shimane Prefecture fisheries project report 1989, pp. 111–114gov
  5. [cdc-metagonimus] US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, DPDx, Metagonimiasis (Metagonimus yokogawai)gov