Fish Cooking Tips – Easy & Tastier

If you are a non-vegetarian, fish is the most health dish. For Keralities fish is an integral part of their culture, a land known for backwaters and wide range of fish dishes. Through this column let me make your work easy by providing a few fish cooking tips.

1. Before preparing fish, along with powders of chilli, coriander and turmeric add a little mustard powder while marinating. Fish won’t break into tiny parts easily.

2. While cleaning dry fish, put some paper in the water along with fish to soak. Paper absorbs excess salt.

3. Before you fry marinated fish, apply a thin coat of beaten eggs. Fish won’t break easily while frying. It adds taste too.

4. After you clean fish, rub your hands and knife with lemon skin to get rid of bad adour. You can also wash your hands with toothpaste to remove the fish smell.

5. Add a little fenugreek powder (fried and then powdered) to your fish curry and fry dishes. Your dish tastes better, gets a pleasant aroma and is good for health too. Fish pieces also get stiffness once cooked.

6. While frying fish, if oil forms foams too much, add a little tamarind to the oil.

7. While marinating fish, add a little lemon juice too. Masala will blend well with fish. 

8. When you take fish from freezer, allow it to reach room temperature. Then marinate it with 1/2 big spoon salt and lemon juice from half lemon. Allow it to rest for 1 hour and wash later. The bad odour will be washed off completely.

9. To get rid of the bad odour in kitchen after cooking fish, mix 1/4 cup water with 1/2 cup vinegar and boil well in a vessel.

10. If you marinate fish with vinegar for a while before cleaning it, it’s easy to remove its scales.

11. Add a little salt to the oil while frying fish or meat. Oil won’t spill outside the pan. 

12. If you make snack varieties of meat or fish by dipping in batter and deep frying in oil, add a pinch of baking soda or soda water to the batter. Your snack turns crispy.

13. Slice green tomatoes to thin pieces. Dry them, make a fine powder and store in a container. Add it to your fish and meat dishes to improve taste.

14. While frying fish or sauting onions, to avoid the bad odour, light a candle and keep in kitchen.

15. While preparing fish kept in refrigerator for a long time, add a little fenugreek too. Fish tastes better.

16. If you make snack varieties of meat or fish by dipping in batter and deep frying in oil, wrap the pieces in cornflour or maida before dipping in batter. If so, the coat binds well. 

17. When you take fish from freezer, immerse it in milk for some time & then prepare curry. If so, the taste difference of being kept in refrigerator goes off. 

18. Fish needs 15-30 minutes resting time after marination. Keep chicken half to one hour after marination (based on the size of pieces). Red meat like mutton and pork need at least 2 hours.

19. Coating marinated fish with beaten eggs, gram flour or semolina before frying can add extra flavour and different taste to your fish fry. 

20. While sauting powders for fish curry, add a little water too. Curry powders won’t burn easily. You can make a paste and then add to oil too.

21. While frying small fishes, when it’s almost fried, add chopped shallots/onions and curry leaves and fry well.

Image source: Pixabay

Want to know how to enhance and improve the taste of some of the common dishes? Here is the page link. Click on the images in the gallery to read