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Pla Ra - Fermented Thai Fish

Hello Unregistered,

Pla Ra - ปลาร้า is a favourite Isaan dish which also has a chance of killing you, the common killing method is due to liver cancer, also you will find that the Isaan version of Pla Ra, ie the fresh water fish used in Isaan are a cause for liver flukes, these flukes are not found in fish from say Bangkok which is a 2 hour drive away or less.
The following link will take you to a Seattle Times Article on Pla Som. Pla Som.

Pla Ra Basics

Pla Ra is an Isaan dish, each maker of Pla Ra uses a slightly different recipe and different quantities of different ingredients, so all will have slight taste and texture differences, to ask whose is the best comes down to personal preference and how long that piece of string is.
The fish used for Pla Ra will be the most common fish caught in the local area, some maybe de-headed, many will just leave the heads on as it is part of the meal so to speak.
The earthern ware jugs used for water storage are popular for using as holding tanks for Pla Ra, these are buried into the ground which then gives them a stable cool temperature all year round to ferment the Pla Ra in, you wouldn't want to fall into one of these, you would stink for months.

Pla Ra Recipe

Ingredients: Fresh water fish. (Typically this is the Snakehead Murrell (Channa striata)) although anything seems to go as long as it is a small to medium size, in the jugs you will find gouramis, frogs and many other aquatic life forms depending on location and the owners tastes in fish and Pla Ra.
Salt.
Rice husks.

Method:

Gut and clean the very fresh fish, washing the body cavities, gills, mouth and outside of the carcass with plenty of fresh running water. Descale the fish and rinse again. (It's important to have a very clean meat as a starting product)
Cut the fish into large pieces filleting as you go. The head is removed. Layer a weighed amount of fish in a large earthenware jar. (The heads do not need to be taken off, again comes down to personal choice.)
Sprinkle an amount of rice husks (not cooked or treated in any way, over the fish. The amount is not truly specified but rather described as a couple of handfuls.
Sprinkle the same weight of salt as the fish, directly onto this layer of fish.
Repeat the layering process as for the first layer until all the fish is safely placed into the fermentation jar.
Cover the mouth of the jar with porous cloth to exclude insects and vermin and cats.
Leave this to ferment in an airy position but not in hot sun for a minimum of six (6) months. The longer the digestion is allowed to proceed, the higher the quality of the product.(Often times are from 1 month to 1 year, so again extremely varied.)
When fermentation is complete then transfer the Pla Ra (that is the entire mixture of contents into smaller air-tight glass storage jars with a lid.

Fermented and Sun Dried Thai Foods - A Reason Why

The harsh environment dictated how foods were prepared. There was no electricity in the town yet, so no refrigeration or lights. Coleman style lanterns were used for light, but this was a luxury because of the cost of the fuel. About 8 PM, when the sun went down, they went to bed and made babies. Then by about 4 AM in the cool of the morning, men were out in the dark working, and women were making breakfast. The charcoal fire was started to cook the rice that had been soaking overnight. Even use of charcoal, though, was kept to a minimum, because it was time consuming and labor intensive to make the charcoal. Rice had to be cooked on it, but other foods were only cooked if absolutely necessary, and then only minimally.

Locally produced salt was used to preserve food, not necessarily to add flavor. Interestingly, the salt is pumped out of the ground as a mineral rich brine solution, then dried in the same manner as sea salt.

The biggest use of salt was the production of pla dek (fish fermented in salt brine). This mixture, which is left to ferment months before using, has a shelf life of eternity. My wife has been using the same jar for years. After each use (of the juice) she tops the jar off with nam pla (fish sauce).

I suppose a true connoisseur (perhaps like Monsieur Som Tam Slap) would label the jar with vintage year and variety (of fish). I would like to point out to skeptics that 40 years of eating her fermented fish hasn't killed me, yet.

As sunshine is plentiful and free, drying fish or meat was the most often used method of preservation. Fish tend to be caught in large quantities over short periods of time, so consuming them all fresh was not an option. Some excess fish were bartered, but most needed to be preserved, and they had only a limited number of containers for fermenting fish. Drying them in the sun was the best they could do, so they could be eaten over the dry season.

Beef tended to be sun-dried for similar reasons. If a buffalo needed to be slaughtered, (ie, it had dropped dead in the field from old age), some of the meat would be used fresh or bartered. But with 1000 lbs of flesh laying there rotting, the obvious solution was to make jerky.