What kinds of oil do you use?
Aug 20, 2013 17:43:26 GMT
Post by Deleted on Aug 20, 2013 17:43:26 GMT
I searched to see if there was an oil thread and couldn't find one, although oil has been mentioned just about everywhere. This is a palm oil thread discussing the controversy of its use in industrial preparations, but there doesn't seem to be one about the oils that we use at home.
My two basic oils are olive and sunflower (meaning that is what I have in big bottles). Sometimes, instead of sunflower I will have rapeseed/canola, as I have not really ever noticed any difference in taste between sunflower and rapeseed. My purchase depends on which of them is cheaper or has a special discount.
I tend to use the rapeseed or sunflower oil for deep frying or any time I want to sear something at high temperature. Olive oil is used for more gentle cooking and salads, although I will confess that I developed a taste for popcorn popped with olive oil even if you are not supposed to use it at the highest temperatures.
I also have sesame oil and chili oil from the Chinese supermarket. I'll put some of that in a few dishes, not necessarily only Asian dishes, but once you know the taste of those oils, they spring to mind when you are fixing certain items. Going back to popcorn, when I am popping corn, I will usually add a bit of chili oil into the mixture. Very impressive results.
However, the reason I started this thread is because today I was at one of the Indian supermarkets and I bought mustard oil on a whim. It was pleasingly yellow. (Don't I have great criteria?) This was sold in the food section, but it was strangely marked "for external use only." Closer inspection showed that it comes not from India but from the UK. This sent me to the internet where I learned that mustard oil is very common in northern Indian cuisine but it is one of those items that occidental tests determined was not good for rats. It was later discovered that rats and similar animals do not digest any sort of vegetable oil very well. But since mustard oil is not considered to be a priority item, nobody bothered to contest the results and they just decided to put the "for external use only" message on the bottles since it is also used as a massage oil.
I don't know why I will try it on something. It is apparently extremely pungent, so I should choose something that is normally extremely bland. In any case, I will publish my results on this forum somewhere or other (maybe "Free Clinic").
There are lots of other oils out there, so I'm hoping that other people will talk about the ones they use and why. Another oïl that is used in France and that you can find in any supermarket is grapeseed oil, but "everybody knows" that it is only to be used as the oil for a meat fondue (fondue bourguignonne). Yet I can't imagine that it is never used for any other reason.
I did not mention peanut oil, because contrary to popular belief, just about nobody uses it in France. I'm sure it was extremely common 50 years ago, but that was because rapeseed and sunflower oil were not yet prévalent in France.
My two basic oils are olive and sunflower (meaning that is what I have in big bottles). Sometimes, instead of sunflower I will have rapeseed/canola, as I have not really ever noticed any difference in taste between sunflower and rapeseed. My purchase depends on which of them is cheaper or has a special discount.
I tend to use the rapeseed or sunflower oil for deep frying or any time I want to sear something at high temperature. Olive oil is used for more gentle cooking and salads, although I will confess that I developed a taste for popcorn popped with olive oil even if you are not supposed to use it at the highest temperatures.
I also have sesame oil and chili oil from the Chinese supermarket. I'll put some of that in a few dishes, not necessarily only Asian dishes, but once you know the taste of those oils, they spring to mind when you are fixing certain items. Going back to popcorn, when I am popping corn, I will usually add a bit of chili oil into the mixture. Very impressive results.
However, the reason I started this thread is because today I was at one of the Indian supermarkets and I bought mustard oil on a whim. It was pleasingly yellow. (Don't I have great criteria?) This was sold in the food section, but it was strangely marked "for external use only." Closer inspection showed that it comes not from India but from the UK. This sent me to the internet where I learned that mustard oil is very common in northern Indian cuisine but it is one of those items that occidental tests determined was not good for rats. It was later discovered that rats and similar animals do not digest any sort of vegetable oil very well. But since mustard oil is not considered to be a priority item, nobody bothered to contest the results and they just decided to put the "for external use only" message on the bottles since it is also used as a massage oil.
I don't know why I will try it on something. It is apparently extremely pungent, so I should choose something that is normally extremely bland. In any case, I will publish my results on this forum somewhere or other (maybe "Free Clinic").
There are lots of other oils out there, so I'm hoping that other people will talk about the ones they use and why. Another oïl that is used in France and that you can find in any supermarket is grapeseed oil, but "everybody knows" that it is only to be used as the oil for a meat fondue (fondue bourguignonne). Yet I can't imagine that it is never used for any other reason.
I did not mention peanut oil, because contrary to popular belief, just about nobody uses it in France. I'm sure it was extremely common 50 years ago, but that was because rapeseed and sunflower oil were not yet prévalent in France.