To make chicken, duck, and fish delicious, removing the fishy smell is the prerequisite. If the fishy smell is removed, half of the success will be achieved.

What is the fishy smell?

In order to appear professional, I will give a chemical definition of fishy smell: a certain substance contained in chicken, duck, and fish meat itself, or a certain substance produced after being left for a period of time. These substances give off an unpleasant smell. , collectively referred to as fishy smell. These substances also have names: trimethylamine, ethyl mercaptan... there are many more. If you take the names apart, you will recognize every word. When put together, most people will feel dizzy. I will not list the names. You only need to remember: fishy The flavor comes from a certain type of substance contained in chicken, duck, and fish meat.

So, removing fishy smell is to remove these fishy smell substances.

The most common way to remove the fishy smell is to use high-temperature heating: frying, deep-frying, and roasting, which can remove most of the fishy smell. The principle is that most fishy smelling substances are not resistant to high temperatures and will evaporate when they reach a certain temperature. For example, all kinds of braised food should be stewed at no more than 100 degrees, and the fishy smell is not easy to evaporate. Especially some braised food with skin, such as pig face, pig trotters, etc., you can remove the fishy smell very well by burning the skin before cooking. This is because Most of the fishy smell substances are concentrated on the pig skin. This is also the purpose of frying the fish before stewing it when making fish soup.

Another method is to neutralize and remove the fishy smell: use vinegar or tomato paste containing acidic substances, sour pickles, tomatoes, hawthorns, lemons, etc., and marinate or cook it with the meat. The principle is that most of the fishy smelling substances are alkaline. The acid and alkali neutralize and turn into odorless salts, so there is no fishy smell. The most common pickled fish is an example. When the ingredients are not suitable for frying, stir-frying, deep-frying, or grilling, you can use sour ingredients to remove the fishy smell.

The third method is to dissolve and remove fishy smell: some fishy smell substances can be dissolved in hot water. Blanching meat is the most common method of removing fishy meat. I once said in another article that the main purpose of blanching is to remove the fishy smell, not to "boil out the blood." The so-called "blood water" refers to the blood remaining in the capillaries. As some food experts said, heating the blood in the capillaries and squeezing it out from the inside out can only be wishful thinking. A pot of hot water is not that good. Smart, remove blood water by repeatedly rinsing and soaking. It can also remove some fishy odors while washing away blood water. Blanching is because hot water dissolves more fishy substances.

Compared with water, alcohol can dissolve more fishy substances. Alcohol has a very low boiling point, boiling at 78 degrees. By heating, the fishy smell can evaporate with the alcohol. In addition, alcohol can react with some fishy substances to change the fishy smell into a fragrant one, which not only removes the fishy smell but also increases the aroma. Note that what is mentioned here is alcohol, not necessarily cooking wine. All alcoholic beverages such as wine, beer, white wine, and rice wine have this effect. In many cases, beer, wine, and rice wine are more effective than cooking wine.

The fourth method is to use spices to remove the fishy smell. The most common ones are onions, ginger, garlic, pepper, Sichuan peppercorns, and chili peppers. The only thing they have in common is that they all have pungent odors. They can react with fishy substances to weaken the smell without even heating them. For example, green onion and ginger water: smash green onions and ginger and soak them in clean water for 20 minutes. Only water can remove the fishy smell from the meat filling. If you are more careful, use a garlic hammer to pound the green onion and ginger into minced meat, which will have a better effect; Sichuan pepper water is similar. But the pepper needs to be soaked in hot water.

Spice is also the most widely used to remove fishy smell. One year, I was a guest at a friend's house in Hunan. My friend's father used a large country iron pot to stew a pot of elbows: a handful of peppercorns, a handful of salt, and no third seasoning, but the taste was very good and not fishy. Not smelly, full of flavor. Therefore, the key to removing fishy meat is not to add too many spices, but to add them appropriately.

Another type of spice is used to remove fishy smell by masking it, such as star anise, fennel, clove, cinnamon, and angelica. The most common thing about these spices is that they have a strong aroma. To mask the fishy smell, pay attention to matching the flavor of the raw materials. For example, star anise has a soft fragrance, which can increase the flavor of pork, and can also be used on other chicken, duck, and fish meat. Angelica dahurica has a strong aroma and cannot be used casually, but it does not conflict with poultry and can also amplify the aroma of chicken and duck meat. Many of the so-called secret saliva chickens and salted ducks use this spice.

The fifth method is to remove the fishy smell from the sauce. For example, sweet noodle sauce, bean paste, fermented bean curd, soy sauce, etc., sauces can not only transform the fishy smell into fragrance, but also have a unique effect: improving freshness, which is not available in other methods of removing fishy smell. For example, the sauced pork buns, the meat filling is stir-fried with sweet noodle sauce and then wrapped in the buns, and the taste will be extremely delicious.

As an aside, I saw that many food influencers posted incorrect recipes for the sauced pork buns. In traditional sauced pork buns, half of the meat filling is stir-fried with sauce and half is raw. The raw meat is added with The combination of cooked meat can make the sauce not cover up the taste of the meat, but also make it more fragrant. There is even a food influencer who specializes in selling meat buns with sauce. He mixes the sauce directly into the meat filling, which really surprised me. Maybe his shop is located in a train station.

The above are 5 common ways to remove fishy meat from chicken, duck and fish. Once you understand the basic principles of fishy meat removal, you will be able to cook various dishes with ease.