So my Japanese boyfriend does most of the cooking and he is a really good cook. He often cooks fish (most of his cooking is a lot of traditional Japanese food so a lot of fish), but he tends to like especially smelly fish like aji or saba. I don’t want to tell him to stop because he loves the fish and quite honestly I like eating it too, but in the one room apartment, the smell sticks for days and it bothers me after awhile. So my question is what cleaning products or tips do you recommend in Japan for getting rid of that super fishy smell that gets trapped after cooking?
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I never actually tried it myself, but my Japanese friend recommended using a [cooking paper](https://mamagirl.jp/0000210553) when frying fish. makes it easier to clean the pan, and I think most of the smell that sticks is from oil droplets that jumped around the kitchen. this would prevent most of that too.
Using paper to wipe the oil and making sure the raw garbage is in a smell blocking bag in a closed bin or just thrown out immediately really helps.
Not a fish guy but the smell of saba in particular still nearly makes me hurl sometimes.
You could buy an air purifier to cycle the air. It will get rid of the smells.
Get a lampe Berger, it’s not cheap but really works you can even get the no scent oil! And then get those no smell garbage bags for the fish leftovers also make sure to clean well all the surfaces like stove wall and so on
You can search for “dryer garbage”. Its a disposal to dry the “nama gomi”.
Without humidity it wont smell bad. But they aren’t cheap.
It can be a good present also.
when throwing away the bones, oil and waste, put them in a little freezer bag and knot that before putting it in your bin for extra smell protection.
Do you know where specifically the smell is coming from? If it’s the bones and skin, I’ll sometimes put those in a small bag and freeze them until it’s garbage day. Sounds weird I know, but it won’t smell at all in the freezer.
I love saba and aji too. After cooking saba I remove the grill and catch tray and clean them with detergent. After it dries, I give it a spray with this [disinfectant](https://tomiz.com/item/00449500) (it doesn’t need much) and that kills the smell no problems.
You might have success with diluted bleach too so you might be able to just buy cheap bleach from Daiso and dilute it a bit.
Lol sweet title, welcome to the country that loves raw and cooked fish. Realistically most people will also smell like you do so don’t sweat it too much😁
You can tell him directly. Even among Japanese people, it’s not very common to cook (especially grill) fish in a small apartment because of the reasons you are concerned about.
Could you run the fan/range hood until after dinner and the dishes have been done? That can do a lot to remove smells in that area.
If you’re in a place where the kitchen can be closed from other rooms, do that too. I’m bothered by oil and cooking smells when I try to sleep, so I always close the door to the kitchen when I cook and afterwards for a while (with the ventilation running like above).
Does your rangehood actually vent outwards or it recirculates?
Good thing about summer being over too is the stinky trash smells from the humidity decreases.
Freeze the left over skin and bones, and take it out when you need to throw it away. This will really reduce the smell.