Food and Cooking Odor Removal Tips

While we enjoy our favorite dishes, our colleagues or even family members find them offensive mainly because of the odor they emit. Certain foods contain spices that produce such unpleasant odor. Such smell is even observed while you’re in the kitchen preparing to do the cooking or even long before you do so. While it’s impossible to get rid of the smell, there are things we can do to minimize its presence.

1. Boil a little vinegar on the stove to eliminate unpleasant cooking odors. However, cooking foods with vinegar like adobo and does not help because the combination of vinegar with other foods like garlic creates odors.
2. To eliminate fishy odor, rub fish inside and out with a slice of lemon.
3. To keep raw fish fillets fresh and odorless in the refrigerator, rinse in a solution of 1 tbsp. lemon juice and 1 cup water, dry thoroughly, wrap and refrigerate.
4. Put orange peelings on the oven racks when you preheat the oven; gives the house a delicious smell. Take out the peelings when you use the oven because burnt peelings have too strong a smell. Return peelings to the oven as soon as you turn it off and the remaining heat will be just enough to bring out the sweet orangey smell.
5. To remove the smell of garlic from the fingers, rub them with a cut ripe tomato.
6. A little vinegar added to the water in which cabbage or beets are boiled will help them keep their colors and cut down the cooking odors.
7. When cooking foods with strong odors, close all doors to other rooms in the house; if possible, open kitchen window and allow air to cross ventilate by opening a door to the outside. If a lot of cooking with garlic is done in the wintertime, ventilate the house once in a while when the temperature is mild (30°F. and above). Lower thermostat 5 degrees. Open the front and back doors and allow the air to cut through the house for at least 5 minutes. On a windy day 5 minutes is more than enough.
8. Lighting up the fireplace doesn’t only give a warmth and a glow to the house, it also provides a draft which clears the air of cooking odors.