Apart from being the name of the hill right next to our farm, Pla Rah, is also a traditional Thai fermented fish that is considered the secret sauce to so many Thai dishes.

And why is it that the hill was named after the dish?
Well, the tale has it that in the past during the rainy season, there would be a small stream showing up in the cave under the hill. There, many kinds of small fish show up out of nowhere. The villagers would go fishing there and pickle all those fish and turn them into Pla Rah. Unfortunately, it hasn’t rained that much anymore now and the small stream has long gone.

What remains after that is the name of the hill is then the name of the dish the hill brought about!

But today, we are not here to tell you about our hill. Instead, our focus is on the dish itself. Grandma is the expert in this field so, we will let her run the show!

The making of Pla Rah is fairly simple. Basically, we can find any kinds of fish, big or small depending on how we want to eat it later. Bigger fish, sometimes we pan-fry them for food. For smaller ones, sometimes we use it as a condiments in other dishes.

After cleaning the fish, take out the organs and drain out the water. We mix it with salt and some cooked rice. Some people add rice bran for deeper flavour. Some people do not. And then we stuff the fish, salt and rice in a close lid container making sure that the lid is tight enough and no air can gets in.

Then, we keep it in cool dry place and let it ferment for a month or so. Open and taste it a bit to see if you like it.

Check out the video above for more on How To’s.

Hope you enjoy it and let us know if you have something similar in your culture! 🙂