Many freshwater fish, such as carp, grass carp, and silver carp, often have a muddy flavor. Here are several methods to remove this odor.
1. Gut and clean the fish, remove the black membrane inside the abdominal cavity, and place it in cold water. Then, add a small amount of vinegar and pepper to the water. The fish treated in this way will have no muddy flavor.
2. Soak the fish in salt water (25 grams of salt, 2.5 kilograms of water), ensuring the water covers the gills. The odor will disappear after 1 hour.
3. The carp has two white tendons along its back that produce a special odor. These should be removed when cleaning the fish. The method is: place the fish on a cutting board, tap both sides of the fish with the back of a knife, then make small incisions on both sides, below the head and tail, where you will see a small white spot. Grasp the white spot in the incision below the head and gently pull it out to remove the tendon.
4. When cleaning yellow croaker, removing the skin on top of the head can reduce the odor. After washing fish, shrimp, or crab, if your hands have a strong fishy smell, you can scrub them with used tea leaves. For utensils that have held fish or shrimp, soaking them in used tea leaves for 8-12 minutes before washing makes them much easier to clean. After frying fish, if your kitchen has a heavy greasy and fishy smell, you can place dry tea leaves in a small dish and ignite them. The odor will be gone in a short while.