What's up folks? How you doing? This is our new post and there are some daily life chemistry hacks for you all. So lets get stared with the stinky, rotten fish; wait rotten fish? Not really..
So let’s say you’ve got some fresh salmon in the back of the fridge. Or at least it was fresh a day or two days ago; before you totally forgot about it. Now you pull that pricey filet out, and get a nasty whiff of super-fishy stink. But don’t throw out that salmon! We’ve got some quick tricks to un-stinky our fish. First, here’s a short reviews of the chemistry behind the stinky smell. The cells of many fish have loads of an odorless chemical called trimethylamine oxide, or TMAO, plus lots of free amino acids. These amino acids give fish its sweet, savory flavor. But fish didn’t evolve extra-tasty cells just to make your sushi delicious. Their cells load up with these dissolved chemicals, called solutes, to prevent osmosis. Otherwise, fish cells shrivel up as water moved from an area with few solutes like a cell’s insides into an area with lots of solutes, like the salty ocean. Shriveled cells equals dead fish, well before it ever gets big enough to eat. When your salmon was first caught, it smelled fresh and clean. Then, the bacteria on it started breaking down TMAO into TMA, that’s trimethylamine.
That distinct fishy aroma is an amine, which is an organic molecule, and it can evaporate, go up your nose, and make you smell fish. Amines are notoriously smelly- if you’ve ever had a whiff of decaying meat, that’s an amine. So let’s get rid of that stink with chemistry. Here are three tricks to make fish less fishy: When a fish finally gets to your fridge, bacteria on its surfaces have had a few days to churn out smelly TMA. We can’t tell you how to go back in time to stop those bacteria, but we can tell you this.
1. Rinse off that stinky coating of bacteria and TMA by running cold tap water over your fish. Don’t use hot water, because it’ll cook your fish a little and you won’t get the same results when you whip up your best recipe.
2. Pat dry and cook:- Soak your fish in milk for 20 minutes. Drain, pat dry, and cook. During the milk soak, a milk protein called casein binds to TMA and extracts it from the fish. When you pour off the milk, you’re pouring off that casein-bound TMA. If you’re out of milk, don’t despair! We have one more trick.
3.Cook your smelly fish in acidic liquid, or dunk your cooked fish in acidic sauce. But not because you want to punish it! Remember that stinky TMA molecule? As we know that amine is basic, and if we introduce an acid to it, say lemon juice, or vinegar, or tartare sauce, the acid and base react and get neutralized. Acids and bases reacting make new products, something called an acid salt and water. The acid salt stays dissolved in the water, so the stink is contained. And if you can’t smell it, you don’t taste it either. Thanks chemistry! With these tricks, you can turn your stinky fish into tasty delish, and stop throwing out still-good salmon. But chemistry can’t protect you from truly rotten fish. The FDA recommends eating refrigerated fish within 48 hours, so don’t forget your Friday fillets until Monday.
Alright all you life hackers out there, hope you enjoyed this new post of the Chemistry Life Hacks. Stay safe and enjoy your fish.
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