Ngaphak
Ngaphak is fish split, flattened and roasted and smoked over an open flame on a wire net or woven bamboo mesh, as practised by fish processors around Loktak Lake in Manipur, India.
Leirou
leirou · Loktak kiln-smoked fish
Leirou is fish smoked in a prepared kiln or room by processors around Loktak Lake in Manipur, India, a method the local survey keeps apart from open-flame ngaphak.
Smoke in a kiln or a room
Leirou is the Loktak processors' name for smoking fish in a space made for it: a prepared kiln or a room, fired with local plant fuels. It is the enclosed counterpart of ngaphak, where split fish are held over an open flame on a mesh. In a kiln or room the smoke gathers around the fish and the fire sits apart from it, so the fish takes smoke more slowly than it does over a naked flame.
The method belongs to a survey of 50 fish processors living in and around Loktak Lake in Manipur, in north-eastern India. The survey sorts the processors' work into roasting and smoking (ngaphak), smoking (leirou) and fermentation, and the sorting is the authors' reading of what the processors told them.
What is not recorded
The survey describes leirou in outline. It gives no kiln dimensions, no firing schedule, no smoking time, and no safe storage limit for the finished fish, and its counts of processors are not prevalence figures for the region. The survey does not state the ethnicity of every respondent, so the practice stays with the surveyed area. A page of community recipes for chagem pomba, a rice and fermented-soybean dish with smoked fish and smoked prawns, shows smoked fish in use but names only generic smoked fish, so it cannot show which process made it.
History
The method is documented in a survey of fish processors around Loktak Lake. The survey gives no date for its beginning.
Ingredients
Scaling: source batch only
Amount not stated
The survey names no species, weight or quantity for this method.Local plant fuels
Amount not stated
The survey lists the fuels the processors use; the list is not reproduced in the notes behind this page, so the plants are not named here.Method
Risks and precautions · High risk
Fish handling and storage
The survey sets no safety endpoint and no storage limit for the smoked fish.
Hazard sourceSmoke-derived contaminants
Smoke deposits compounds on the food; the survey reports no measurement of them.
Hazard sourceTreat the survey as a description of local practice, not a validated preservation process.
Control sourceThis is not a validated home-preservation recipe.
Do not judge safety or shelf life by smell, appearance or taste.
- Prepare a kiln or a room for smoking.
- Smoke the fish in the kiln or room over a fire of local plant fuels.
- The survey does not describe how the fish is cut, how long it stays in the smoke, or how the finished fish is stored.
Places
Loktak Lake, Manipur
Documented preparation · Region evidenceThe survey covers processors living in and around the lake and does not identify every respondent's ethnicity, so the practice is tied to the surveyed area and not to one community.
Related
More from Manipur
Hawaijar
A sticky fermented soybean food of Manipur, made by packing cooked soybeans in leaf-lined bamboo baskets and keeping them warm, related to but distinct from Bekang and Akhone.
Hentak
Manipuri fermented fish-and-aroid paste, formed into balls or kept in an earthen pot, used to season Manipuri dishes. Its method is documented in outline only.
Ngari
Ngari is a Manipuri fermented fish condiment made from small sun-dried fish, usually Puntius sophore, packed for fermentation. A biochemical study describes a salt-free method; it works as a condiment and ingredient rather than as a filtered sauce.
Soibum
Thin slices of juvenile bamboo shoots fermented for six to twelve months in Manipur, eaten as a sour side dish with rice.
Soidon
Fermented tender bamboo-shoot tips from Manipur, started with the sour liquid of an earlier batch and eaten in chutneys and curries.
Soijim
The sour liquid that forms during Manipuri Soidon fermentation, kept to start the next batch and used to sour curries.
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Sources
Sustainability, Agri, Food and Environmental Research, vol. 12(2); Jogesh Laishram and Mithra DeyMethod · History
Fish processing methods practiced by the people living in and around the Loktak lake, Manipur, IndiaSurvey of 50 fish processors living in and around Loktak Lake
Leirou: smoking in a prepared kiln or room, with local plant fuels
Ngaphak is a separate method of roasting and smoking split fish over flame; fermentation is a third category
No measured kiln geometry or validated storage limit
Cited in: Smoke in a kiln or a room; What is not recorded