So it turns out I've been using the wrong kind of coconut oil

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Being the middle class west-London couple that we are (), the girlfriend and I watched with great interest the Food Unwrapped section on coconut oil, last night on TV.

Turns out we'd been buying the organic, virgin, unrefined stuff which has a lot lower smoking point than the refined stuff. I didn't even know there was refined/unrefined Perhaps this could explain why we get a particularly "burning" smell when using it to stir-fry in my wok? I thought it was just me being quite over-vigorous with the heat. And it seemed authentic, woops. We use a mixture of olive oil (not virgin) for frying, groundnut and coconut oil depending on the dish.

Should we buy refined coconut oil for stir-frying then?

 

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Why are you using coconut oil in the first place?

Because my girlfriend tends not to like the flavour of olive oil and as FrenchTart said it is a lot better for you. What I didn't understand was that there is refined/unrefined and that I was hitting the smoke point.

Can anyone find out what the smoke point of groundnut oil is compared to refined coconut oil? I wonder which would be best for stir fries.

I just realised I seasoned my wok with that (unrefined) coconut oil

 

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https://jonbarron.org/diet-and-nutrition/healthiest-cooking-oil-chart-smoke-points#.V1a8VNkrJhE

http://www.seriouseats.com/2014/05/cooking-fats-101-whats-a-smoke-point-and-why-does-it-matter.html

Groundnut oil is okay but there are plenty of options to choose from for high smoke-point oils

They're good links (fairly sure I'd read the SE one before) but neither mention refined/unrefined coconut oil. Nor do they mention groundnut oil. Or is that peanut oil to Americans?

 

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If you're interested in all this healthy stuff you should catch a programme in iplayer called the truth about healthy eating. They showed that rapeseed oil is just as healthy as coconut oil and about a quarter of the price.

We caught some of that. To be honest my girlfriend first bought it when she had braces as it can be used for that too. ("oil pulling"). Meh. I'm not one for fads but as I thought it had a higher smoke point it had it's uses in cooking as well.

We investigated rapeseed oil a while ago when that was a fad. I'm sure it was crazily expensive then, too!

What does everyone stir fry with then?

 

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I think their conclusion was bob on though, there's no magic bullet that has special health properties. Just have a balanced diet that contains a variety of fresh fruit and vegetables and limit the amount of processed food that tends not to be as nutritious as fresh.

I totally agree and the girlfriend and I are very much into "everything in moderation" rather than getting sucked into fads.

I was also under the impression that rapeseed has a low smoke point more akin to virgin olive oil hence why I never bothered replacing olive oil with it Again, not on those links

 

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I've purposefully never tried cooking with ghee because I'm worried I'd start using it in everything

Agreed about margerines etc though. Depending on the dish I do cook with proper butter occasionally and for spreading we always buy spreadable butter without any oil in it. Again, everything in moderation.

 

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stir-fry: sesame oil (depending on what tastes I'm aiming for)

Err, I thought sesame oil was definitely not for cooking, ever? We use it to season stir fries at the end:

Sesame oil - a finishing oil rather than a cooking oil, you should only ever add sesame oil at the end for a slightly smoky nutty flavour. A little goes a long way.

spreadable butters should probably be avoided, as they've must have had there fat changed to be soft at fridge temp.

I'm intrigued by this, do you have any further information? We avoid any "spreadable" that contains oil. I wonder what the downside of this is.

 

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To be honest the "spreadable" butter we get is hardly spreadable out of the fridge and it absolutely does my nut trying to spread it on bread. I consequently usually end up swearing like an idiot having utterly destroyed my poor bread with it

We buy Kerrygold 'softer' butter for spreading which says this on their website;

Kerrygold Softer Butter is 100% pure Irish butter. We’ve simply increased the amount of softer milk fat (which is thanks to our cows and the lush green grass they feed on) and added a gentle heating and cooling process.

Possibly we should become even more middle class and get a butter dish that stays out of the fridge?

 

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Yeah, I would do that, but to be honest it would stay there for at least a month. We rarely eat bread (only the odd sandwich at weekends I suppose) so it just wouldn't get used that quick. Maybe I should leave the "proper" butter out of the fridge and just have that -- that would get used slightly quicker as I'd use it in cooking as well.

 

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Just slap your bread in the puddle and mop it up, sorted

Sounds good. We have an electric cooker now () so I could probably just wack it on that for 3mins, right? Very spreadable.

 

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We actually have one of these, perhaps it should be put to good use. Only problem is the butter will not be covered.

Probably better used at the table, really.