Which oil do you use for cooking?

Sudden

Sudden

Sudden

Soldato
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As title really. I've always used extra virgin olive oil for cooking most things and sunflower oil for deep frying. This is mainly because I had been told that olive oil is one of the healthier oils for cooking and pretty much anything will do if you're deep frying.

Lately however, i've been told by a couple of friends (who generally know what they're talking about in this area), that olive oil is not a good one to use for cooking because it tends to decompose quite quickly, making it unhealthy. Led me to wonder then, what do most people use for cooking and if you use what you use for health reasons or for taste reasons?
 
I would never use extra Virgin for cooking, it's pointless. I just use normal olive oil.

Beyond that it depends on the type of food I am cooking. E.g I would never use olive oil for Indian/ Asian cooking,Cawdor tastes "wrong" just use sunflower oil for that.

Fried eggs or omelettes = must use butter.
 
Olive oil for general, not extra virgin total waste of money. Use that for salad dressings and the like.
Ground nut for high temp.
Sunflower/vegetable oil for in-between or deep frying
 
Olive oil for roasting/pasta/anything italian. Sunflower/vegetable for deep frying/frying. Groundnut for stir fries. Butter for anything eggy, mushrooms, etc...
 
I have loads of oils :p

Very decent EV olive oil: Bread dipping, bruchetta, dressings etc

EV olive oil: Cooking certain things (low temp): roast veg, marinading etc

EV rapeseed oil: The all rounder. High smoke point so great for frying, baking, whatever. Even nice enough to use as a dressing (altho not cheap).

Local sunflower oil: Pancakes (:D), shallow frying

Beef dripping: Roasties & yorkie puds :)

Also have a load of oil infusions I have made, usually EV olive oil, with chilli, basic etc.
 
Groundnut/regular olive oil seem to be the winners mostly (you know, apart from the cooking in lard idea :p though if I was going that route i'd probably stick to the tried and tested desi ghee :D). AcidHell - extra virgin and regular olive oil are the exact same prices (at least in Sainsbury's. Brand I get is Filippo), so presumably that's not the only reason to go for the regular?

I should have probably mentioned - I mostly cook Indian food, so most of that is light frying in a pan, if that makes a difference?

HeadlessChicken - i've heard that rapespeed oil, while pretty healthy, tastes really bad and takes a while to get used to as its flavour really comes through what you're cooking. Is that the case with it?
 
Stupot_ said:
Olive oil makes great roast potatoes!
Click to expand...

This is actually very true! Even better when you use 50/50 dripping and olive oil ;)



Sudden said:
HeadlessChicken - i've heard that rapespeed oil, while pretty healthy, tastes really bad and takes a while to get used to as its flavour really comes through what you're cooking. Is that the case with it?
Click to expand...


If you buy the rapeseed stuff in a plastic bottle from tesco, it will, yes. What you need is extra virgin cold pressed rapeseed oil. You can get this in the bigger supermarkets: Linkage.

The stuff I use is slightly better IMO (from a local farm), but that stuff is nice. Main problem is cost, it's comparable to (and sometimes more expensive than) a good EV olive oil. That puts many people off.

The taste of a good EV rapeseed is quite sweet and nutty. Certainly not bad, and nicer than groundnut oil :)
 
For dressings/drizzling I have - extra virgin olive oil, rapeseed oil, walnut oil and white truffle oil.
General use - olive oil and groundnut oil.
Deep/shallow frying - sunflower or vegetable oil.
 
I no longer heat any oil, though in terms of oxidation and damage to oils (which in turn then damage us), choose either coconut, 'high oleic' sunflower - though harder to find, olive - if doing no more than a stir fry (not ideal for baking, shame 'cause I love parsnips), low heat stir fry in butter. There are one or two others though they escape me at the moment. Choose coconut if you can.
 
Pretty much just always olive oil (and yes it does make amazing roast spuds)

Although anything asian I used ground nut. And pancakes I used vegetable oil.
 
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