How to choose tasty and high-quality fish: expert recommendations

Fish is not only a healthy, tasty product, but also a very insidious one. Very often, stale fish is sold under the guise of a quality carcass, which can cause serious harm to the body. Therefore, you should know what should never be on a quality fish and what it should look like.

A well-known chef from Odesa, Valeriy Ponomar (ponomar_valeriy), will help you to understand this difficult task. The chef shared the most important points of choosing quality fish on his Instagram page.

First, pay attention to the gills

The gills of quality fish should be bright red. But it's worth noting that there are species of fish that have dark red and pink gills. If the gills are gray, black, or spotted, such fish should not be bought.

Pay attention to the eyes

The eyes should be clear and shiny. If they are cloudy, sunken, or have a characteristic appearance of fresh fish, refuse such fish.

If the fish has no head

In this case, we are talking about chilled fish (we do not take into account frozen fish, which is always sold without a head), the expert does not recommend buying chilled fish without a head, in most cases, this is how they try to hide product damage, this also includes cases when the fish is chilled and its gills are removed.

Smell and mucus

Fresh fish does not have a pungent odor. Also, the fish should not be slippery due to mucus. A pronounced brown (rusty) mucus on the fish is also a sign of not the first freshness. Scales should fit snugly together

Processed fish

The safest fish is the one that you choose first, and only then is it processed and cut into portions.

If you take the varieties of fish that are sold, in most cases, processed (salmon and tuna), pay attention to the density of the fillet itself, the color of the flesh - do not choose fish with spots on it. When buying a whole salmon carcass, do not hesitate to ask for a plastic glove, open the gill cover, evaluate the color, open the abdominal cavity and make sure that the fillet has no gallbladder stains, no bones sticking out.