What's the best oil to cook with?

boing
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Hot oil.

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Trick question: it depends.

On what you’re cooking, what you’re cooking in, what the source of heat is, and how hot. :wink:

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Surprising that there’s no mention of smoke point in this article. Though I remember reading something recently (can’t remember where, sorry), that it wasn’t as big a deal as had been made out. Olive Oil has a smoke point of 160 C, so not ideal for deep frying if the smoke point was a big deal (especially for chips, which require a 2nd cook at 180/190 to finish them off).

Olive Oil has a stronger flavour than Rapeseed Oil, so the latter probably better for cooking stuff where you want a more neutral oil (e.g. Chinese or Indian).

I use Groundnut (Peanut) Oil a lot, shame they don’t mention that one. Normally use that or Ghee with Indian dishes, Olive Oil for general use.

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 Five litres of the viscous, PCB-laden liquid sells for $60. 
 It looks like cooking oil, but lasts much longer, users say.
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Holy shit. See how business flourishes when unhindered by pesky regulators?

Also, olive plus butter. And if you’re starting a mirepoix, add some bacon. It’s healthy!

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And then finish with a drizzle of blood orange oil. Mmmmmmm

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Yes. You can’t stir-fry for sh!t with olive oil.

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Yup. And you can’t brown mushrooms without butter! (well, I’m sure you can buy why would you?)

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That is… well… horrifying.

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Is “vegetable oil” soy? If you’re going with euphemisms, why not call rapeseed by the less rapey commercial name “Canola”?

And why so few oils tested? Here’s [a random table][1] off google showing some properties of a whole lot more choices. No idea how accurate this one is, but hey.

I’ve been favoring coconut oil for some olive-oily applications. The less-refined versions work great as hair and skin moisturizers too if you’re into that.
[1]: http://jonbarron.org/diet-and-nutrition/healthiest-cooking-oil-chart-smoke-points#.VbevQHjGJHE

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I thought it was daring to coat my cake pan with olive oil when I realized that I had nothing else at hand; I found that it didn’t make the cake taste like olives.

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Rapeseed oil is only called Canola in North America AFAIK. The name is from the latin for Turnip apparently.

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Would depend on what type of olive oil you use, coldpressed extra virgin is going to have lots of impurities, including loads of olive-y flavour compounds. More refined olive oils could well be fairly neutral, probably depends on the brand and the process used. Would also depend on the amount used as well of course.

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#horrifrying

 

#ftfy

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We call it Canola in Brazil. I doubt anyone around knows what a rapeseed is or would recognize the Portuguese name for the plant, “Colza”.

As for the name, The Wiki suggests this:

The name “canola” was chosen by the board of the Rapeseed Association of Canada in the 1970s. The “Can” part stands for Canada and “ola” refers to oil. However, a number of sources, including The Free Dictionary, continue to claim it stands for "Can(ada)+o(il)+l(ow)+a(cid). The name was coined partially to avoid the negative connotations of rapeseed.

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I’ve never seen it sold as Canola in Britain or Ireland.

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Olive oil can literally, not figuratively, die in a fire.

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THE HIERARCHY OF FATS

  • Butter
  • Lard
  • Suet
  • Coconut
  • Peanut
  • Grape
  • Canola

…

  • Used synthetic motor oil

…

  • Olive oil
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what would you make a salad dressing out of? or a nice dip with some balsamic vinegar for dunking bread in?