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Remember to add this seasoning to any fish dish, it’ll make the fish tasty and flavorful, without any fishy smell.

By using just one simple trick, your braised fish dish will be more flavorful and guaranteed not to have any fishy taste.

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21 December, 2023

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Fish prep

Once you have chosen a fresh and delicious fish, you still need to prepare it properly so that it does not become fishy when cooked.

Remove the guts and gills of the fish, scrape off the black and white membrane inside the fish’s belly, clean off the scales, cut off the fins, and rinse off any excess blood.

To get rid of the fishy smell, you can sprinkle a little salt on the fish and scrub both the outside and inside of the fish to clean off the slime and eliminate the fishy odor.

For slippery fish like basa fish, catfish, eel, and snakehead fish, you can pour hot water over the fish and scrape off the slime. This will prevent the fish from becoming fishy.

Another method to eliminate the fishy smell is to use rice washing water. Soak the fish in rice washing water for about 15 minutes and then rinse it with clean water to remove the slime and fishy odor.

Don’t skip the marinating step

For braised fish dishes, in order to have flavorful and firm fish, you must marinate the fish. Depending on your preference and the type of braised fish, the spices used to marinate the fish may vary. Usually, people marinate the fish with fish sauce, salt, sugar, and other aromatic spices to mask the fishy smell.

Depending on the type of fish, you can marinate the whole fish or cut it into pieces and marinate it with a delicious fish sauce, Ban sauce, soup powder, dried shallots, ginger… (according to your taste) for at least 2 hours. If you don’t have much time, marinate the fish for at least 30 minutes before cooking.

Ingredients for braising fish

To make the fish have a beautiful color, you need to use caramelized water. You can melt sugar until it turns golden brown and then add water to get caramelized water. This caramelized water can be used for braising fish or meat to give them a nice color.

In addition, some people braise fish together with pork belly or a little fat to keep the fish tender and prevent it from becoming dry. If you don’t use pork belly, you can add a little pork fat or cooking oil to the pot when braising the fish.

Besides the main ingredient, which is fish, depending on the braising style, people may use other ingredients to braise together such as green bananas, pineapple, bamboo shoot, sugarcane, tea leaves… These ingredients are usually spread at the bottom of the pot before placing the fish on top. They not only give the fish a delicious aroma and prevent it from becoming fishy but also prevent the fish from sticking to the pot during the braising process.

Braising liquid

When braising fish, you need to pour hot water into the pot. After adding the caramelized water and marinated fish to the pot, if you find that the water does not cover the fish completely, you can add warm water, but avoid adding cold water. Using cold water will make the fish fishy.

During the braising process, if you need to add more water, only add hot water, not cold water.

Use pure fish sauce

During the braising process, you should add 1 tablespoon of pure fish sauce to the pot. Pure fish sauce has a strong aroma and a rich flavor, which effectively eliminates the fishy smell.

Braising time