How to boil fish

Many Nigerians think their food is incomplete when it doesn’t contain any animal protein. This includes beef, turkey, chicken and of course fish

When cooking, before many forms of animal proteins – such as beef, chicken, turkey – are added to food, they must be pre-cooked.

On the other hand, it is not compulsory to pre-cook fish before adding it to soups and sauces.

It is not compulsory because fish has short cooking time and this to prevent the fish from being overcooked which may lead to it crumbling when added to food

As a result many people clean the fish very well and then added to their cooking, so that in the process of cooking the food or soups the fish will also be properly cooked alongside.

Before I state the reasons why fish should be pre-cooked, here are the ingredients for boiling fish.

Ingredients for boiling fish

2 mackerel fish
1 table spoon salt
2 seasoning cube
1 table spoon mixed herb
1 table spoon curry powder
1 onion

To clarify, the mixed herb contains basil, dried thyme, parsley, oregano and marjoram.

For this recipe, I used mackerel fish but you can used any fish of your choice.

Why should you boil fish before cooking?

As earlier mentioned, fish can be added raw to food while cooking and the heat of cooking the food will equally cook the fish.

Yet, there are instances where you have to boil the fish first before adding to food.

There are two major reasons why fish must be boiled first, the reasons are stated below.

Short cooking time : fish is boiled first if the food it will be added to has a short cooking time. This is because the short cooking time of the food may not be enough to cook the fish properly so to ensure that the fish is well cooked before eating, it is pre-cooked first. For instance when cooking Nigerian style Noodles.
No further cooking : When fish is to be added to foods that do not need cooking then it is important to first boil the fish. An instance is when fish is to be added to sandwiches.

With this in mind, now I will proceed to write about how to boil fish to get a delicious taste.

Cut the mackerel fish into small sizes – Personally, I cut my fish into 4 to pieces.

Clean the fish in water by ensuring that the insides, the fins and gills are removed. Here is how to clean fish
Peel off the skin of the onion and slice it
Put the cleaned fish into a pot
Add salt, seasoning cubes, curry powder, and mixed herb
Add 2-3 cups of water and mix well
Cook for 10-15 minutes on medium heat
After 15 minutes fish is ready to be eaten

Although the fish is ready to be eaten or to be included in already cooked soups or sauces, please note that the fish contains bones.

In order to ensure that children can safely enjoy eating fish, it is important to note that fish bone must be removed and this takes me to the next cooking tips I want to share with you.

The next cooking tip I would like to share with you is on how to remove fish bone.

How to remove fish bone.

Often times when cooking, we want to finish the cooking process so that we can go ahead to do other things or better still we want to rest.

After boiling the fish, the cooking process is sometimes slowed because of the hot fish.

This is because when we are cooking dishes in which we have to add deboned fish, we would have to wait for the fish to cool down first before removing the bones.

Here I will explain to you in detail how to remove fish bone while the fish is still hot.

Remove the cooked fish from the pot and put it in a bowl
Get a fork and a knife
Cut the fish in half with the knife
Separate the fish from the bone
Repeat the process till all the bones are removed.

As can be seen in the image above the fish bone have been easily removed.

To this end, I hope you will consider using this recipe the next time you want to boil fish.

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