Cooking with olive oil question

I first became enamored with OO back in the 60's while in Spain. And over the years I have used literally gallons and gallons of it. I always buy a well known brand of EVOO and use it for about everything saving as a dipping oil. I buy it in a 2-3 liter bottle, and it lasts me about a month. Kept in a cool dark place it never becomes rancid, or off. Now to the question...for cooking, and especially frying, am I throwing money away by using EVOO? Is the "light" or "pure" yellow vs the green of EVOO, just as good for that purpose?

Frying with extra virgin oil has something akin to washing the dishes with bottled mineral water. Any cold press olive oil will do for frying except that labeled "candle quality" or oil that has already gone rancid.

A hint - try sometimes sauteeing in a mixture of 3/4 olive oil and 1/4 walnut oil. Or, on other occasions a mixture of 3/4 olive oil and 1/4 clarified butter. Either can add marvelously to many dishes.

Best
Rogov

Also for frying, depending on what it is, you might be better off using a more neutral oil like Canola, grapeseed or sunflower oil, all of which also have a higher smoke point than EVOO.

Also for frying, depending on what it is, you might be better off using a more neutral oil like Canola, grapeseed or sunflower oil, all of which also have a higher smoke point than EVOO.

Shel, I agree with using another oil, especially for high heat, but I do so like the flavor that OO gives. I like to take a semi stale French bread roll and fry that in olive oil to go with my morning coffee. Sometimes I like to sprinkle the "pan frito" with powdered sugar.

Also for frying, depending on what it is, you might be better off using a more neutral oil like Canola, grapeseed or sunflower oil, all of which also have a higher smoke point than EVOO.

Shel, I agree with using another oil, especially for high heat, but I do so like the flavor that OO gives. I like to take a semi stale French bread roll and fry that in olive oil to go with my morning coffee. Sometimes I like to sprinkle the "pan frito" with powdered sugar.

How very Continental of you, Bob. It does sound good. We use a lot of EVOO, too, but I tend to use other oils when I'm not interested in imparting the EVOO to the food.

Mark Lipton

Frying with extra virgin oil has something akin to washing the dishes with bottled mineral water. Any cold press olive oil will do for frying except that labeled "candle quality" or oil that has already gone rancid.

A hint - try sometimes sauteeing in a mixture of 3/4 olive oil and 1/4 walnut oil. Or, on other occasions a mixture of 3/4 olive oil and 1/4 clarified butter. Either can add marvelously to many dishes.

Best
Rogov

Daniel, I will try a bottle of "lesser" oil and see for myself if there is a discernible difference. As of this point in time, I do have a 3 liter bottle of EVOO to go through.

I've been watching a food show that's travelling through Spain. In one of the episodes, the chef at a ritzy restaurant used EVOO for sauteing. That said, it is less expensive to use a lower grade such as pure OO and save the good stuff for salads, etc. I believe pure OO also has a higher smoke point than EVOO.

Not all EVOO is the same. I use a 'basic' EVOO (for the past two years it has been the Whole Foods Spanish/Italian/Greek range) for most cooking. I have found that cheaper olive oils can definitely be tasted (in a bad way) in the final product, especially when they are too thin. Obviously the fine delicate stuff and higher-end stuff doesn't need to be used in cooking.

A hint - try sometimes sauteeing in a mixture of 3/4 olive oil and 1/4 walnut oil. Or, on other occasions a mixture of 3/4 olive oil and 1/4 clarified butter. Either can add marvelously to many dishes.

I do this all the time. The olive oil raises the temperature at which the butter burns, which is a really wonderful thing especially when sautéing at high temps, like scallops.

Hi,

I think a lot depends upon what kind of EVOO you have and what you're after. I only have one olive oil, a very expensive cold pressed Provence EVOO that I buy from the maker every year. I have been known to cook with it, risking the fate that led to Imam Bayeldi, and usually when I feel the powerful taste of olive oil is essential to the dish. However, for most frying, I use other fats. Duck fat for things like potatoes and so on, neutral vegetable oil when I don't want the foodstuff to be "tainted" by the fat.

I've never tried Daniel's suggestion to use part walnut oil. We live in a walnut production area here, and are lucky enough to have access to first class craftsman produced walnut oil. The received wisdom here is that one should NEVER heat it, though I've no idea why. From time to time I've been tempted, but never fallen. On the other hand I often use a mixture of butter and neutral oil, though never butter and olive oil, which seems to me to rather a case of gilding the lily - or over complicating flavours, if you like.

I don't know if this is something of a breach of forum etiquette or not, but talking about walnut oil, I have a very good recipe, devised by my wife, for a french dressing - vinaigrette sauce, for salad that unusually is entirely wine friendly. That uses walnut oil, diluted with a neutral oil, because our walnut is so powerfully flavoured. http://pagesperso-orange.fr/souvigne/re ... isc090.htm

Hope someone finds that interesting.

All the best
Ian

[Jenise]

Bob, if you're going through 2-3 liters a month or so and that wasn't a typo, and if you consider the EVOO you use affordable, then you have no issue. And if you use it that often, keeping it in a dark place is almost a moot issue. You would never want to leave any oil sitting in the hot sun, of course, or it will go rancid, but there's no need to go to the extra effort you might be going through in that short period of time.

I use almost exclusively EVOO myself even though I don't go through nearly what you do (about 500 ml a month), so I certainly wouldn't be one to tell you that you should or shouldn't use it. I love olive oil, and I love the taste of it. So much so that I buy some good tasting but cheaper oils for general cooking and some more expensive "condiment level" EVOO's for salad dressings and dipping. I do keep some small quantity of a neutral safflower oil on hand for the rare occasion when I don't want the added flavor, but I'm such a fan that's rare--mostly baking and the like. I also, like Ian, use several nut oils for inclusion in salad dressings--since I make a salad dressing every night and since all my dressings are oil-and-vinegar based, the variety of tastes afforded by oils like pistacio, walnut and hazelnut is appreciated.

I'm also a fan of extra virgin peanut oil--hard to find, but killer stuff if you find it.


Ian, we most certainly do allow linkage to sites like your wife's, but thank you so much for being concerned and asking. And I must comment on your supply system: I'M SO ENVIOUS. When I read (you probably cringe at the mention you've heard it so many times, but I must give credit when due!) A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle, one of the most enticing aspects, maybe THE most enticing aspect, to me of his life there was the thought of spending a Saturday just fetching in a new supply of olive oil. I would be in heaven to not only spend a day that way but to live where it is possible. You live in Provence, do you not? I remember 'Orange' from your registration ISP.

When I read (you probably cringe at the mention you've heard it so many times, but I must give credit when due!) A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle, one of the most enticing aspects, maybe THE most enticing aspect, to me of his life there was the thought of spending a Saturday just fetching in a new supply of olive oil. I would be in heaven to not only spend a day that way but to live where it is possible. You live in Provence, do you not? I remember 'Orange' from your registration ISP.

Jenise, I'll take the liberty of responding for Ian since I've known him for a decade now (totally coincidental that he's turned up here, though): he and his charming wife live in the Corrèze, near to the Dordogne valley, where they run a lovely gite (B&B). It's a fair hike to Provence from there and involves crossing over the Massif Central. Orange.fr is one of the big French ISPs, so it's not an indication of location per se. I suspect, without knowing, that his olive oil source may have been one found by a mutual friend of ours who does live in Provence and is very active in Slow Food Provence. Just a guess, though...

Mark Lipton
Internet Busybody

[Jenise]

When I read (you probably cringe at the mention you've heard it so many times, but I must give credit when due!) A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle, one of the most enticing aspects, maybe THE most enticing aspect, to me of his life there was the thought of spending a Saturday just fetching in a new supply of olive oil. I would be in heaven to not only spend a day that way but to live where it is possible. You live in Provence, do you not? I remember 'Orange' from your registration ISP.

Jenise, I'll take the liberty of responding for Ian since I've known him for a decade now (totally coincidental that he's turned up here, though): he and his charming wife live in the Corrèze, near to the Dordogne valley, where they run a lovely gite (B&B). It's a fair hike to Provence from there and involves crossing over the Massif Central. Orange.fr is one of the big French ISPs, so it's not an indication of location per se. I suspect, without knowing, that his olive oil source may have been one found by a mutual friend of ours who does live in Provence and is very active in Slow Food Provence. Just a guess, though...

Mark Lipton
Internet Busybody

Well isn't it a small world. Very cool! I am now going to have to get out my maps and examine locations more closely. I've been through the area but unfortunately spent too little time there to have gained an adequate understanding of relative distances.

Hi again

First, thanks Mark for explaining a bit more who and where we are. Jenise, apart from the over generous and entirely self interested compliments (He and Jean will probably be visiting us in 2011 and I expect he's hoping that if he's extravagant enough in his compliments, I might crack open the one mag of Gouges Les St Georges 1990 I've got in the cellar!! ), Mark's about right. The only thing he got slightly wrong - though he's right about the mutual friend in Provence - is how I got hold of my olive oil. Every year in a neighbouring village, there's a Chestnut fair, but because - to be brutally honest - there's really only a limited number of things to do with chestnuts that one can sell, the organisers invite top quality craftsmen from all over France to exhibit. We tasted his oil a few years ago - as well as his fresh green olives, and were blown away. So even if I weren't going for the chestnuts (which I do), I'd go to get his oil.

Anyway, to come back to our supply "chain". One of the things that made me fall completely in love with this part of France is that "small is beautiful" isn't a pious and rather hopeless piece of sloganeering, but the reality - lived unselfconsciously throughout the community. Of course we've got supermarkets, but parallel to that we have a fantastic market (farmers, and resellers) in Brive-la-Gaillarde on a Saturday morning, where I can get anything locally produced from honey to truffles, and including unpasteurised cheeses, butter and milk, fresh foie gras, beautiful half dried agen prunes, a real hen raised for the pot, walnuts, cepes ... amazing. The range is relatively limited, because the sort of people I buy from only sell what they raise, and at any one time of the year, many are going to be selling the same thing of course. I buy half a pig from Marielle every year, it's decently raised on the farm and (just as we did when we were in East TN) we were present when it gave its all for us. So I KNOW it was a healthy and happy animal and how many people are lucky enough to be able to say that? She's also raising me a sheep, and one of the local butchers, who specialises in beef, chooses his Limousin beef cattle from farms he knows. My chickens come from local organic farmers, and so on and so forth. We grow a bit of our own vegetables, usually stuff I can't buy here because it's not known - Puszta Gold peppers, because the bell peppers we can generally get in Europe are hopeless, Jalepeño peppers because the French tend to go wimpish when faced with "hot", curly Kale, and various USAian beans.

Life here is incredibly sweet and I'd not move away for anybody or anything. Sorry.... I do go on, I know. But do try that vinaigrette one day, when you want to finish off that rather nice bottle of Willakenzie Plaisir à Trois.

Ian, in thumbing theough your recipe page(s), I found a recipe for cajun 15 bean soup. In it you list "500 g poitrine fumé; diced" and I am sad to admit that you have me flummoxed. I get it that this is a smoked breast of something, but what? Is it chicken, or duck, or something else? Sorry to be troublesome. Also, if it is duck, what could I substitute? Again, sorry to be troublesome or to be deviating from your recipe, but I have no idea where to buy a smoked duck breast.

probably be visiting us in 2011 and I expect he's hoping that if he's extravagant enough in his compliments, I might crack open the one mag of Gouges Les St Georges 1990 I've got in the cellar!!

No rush. We had this from 750 over the summer and it was young young young. From magnum you may need to wait until 2031!

Hi Bob,

Ian, in thumbing through your recipe page(s), I found a recipe for cajun 15 bean soup. In it you list "500 g poitrine fumé; diced" and I am sad to admit that you have me flummoxed. I get it that this is a smoked breast of something, but what?

I'm so sorry. Here in France, we get this in any shop. Basically it's uncooked slab bacon, but you could use ordinary US slab bacon, which you slice about 1/4 inch think and then cut into little fingers across the grain also 1/4 inch thick, so, assuming your slab bacon was about 1½ inches thick to start with, you'll end up with "lardons" 1½X¼X¼ in size, roughly. Ham cubes would be another possibility as would smoked sausage cut into cubes or slices.

Hope that clarifies things.

BTW, if there are any other expressions anyone finds unclear, don't hesitate to ask. I try to walk a line between making sure my recipes can be understood, and brevity and often fail on both counts!!

Hi Bob,I'm so sorry. Here in France, we get this in any shop. Basically it's uncooked slab bacon, but you could use ordinary US slab bacon, which you slice about 1/4 inch think and then cut into little fingers across the grain also 1/4 inch thick, so, assuming your slab bacon was about 1½ inches thick to start with, you'll end up with "lardons" 1½X¼X¼ in size, roughly. Ham cubes would be another possibility as would smoked sausage cut into cubes or slices.

Hope that clarifies things.

BTW, if there are any other expressions anyone finds unclear, don't hesitate to ask. I try to walk a line between making sure my recipes can be understood, and brevity and often fail on both counts!!

Ian, thanks for the clarification, and the brevity!