Best oil for frying.

[redsturgeon]

I used to use sunflower oil for general frying and olive oil for specific dishes but I read an article a couple of months ago suggesting that because of the high level of polyunsaturates sunflower oilis probably not the healthiest to use.

It wasn't this article but it makes the same point.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-33675975

I now use rapeseed oil for everyday frying and olive oil for low temperature frying of things like mushrooms and eggs, and of course any Italian dish. The article above suggest that using lard is not as bad as you might think and I remember my mum used to cook a lot with lard and she is now 90!

What oil do you tend to use for cooking?

John

[swill453]

These days the cheapest vegetable oil in the supermarket is usually rapeseed oil. It only says it in the small print on the back of the label though.

Scott.

[UncleEbenezer]

Long ago I gave up on both sunflower and rapeseed after finding they tended to spatter me when used for frying.

Back then, Corn Oil was my usual substitute. Possibly with a dab of something with more flavour, like sesame oil. But that's now become as expensive as fancier oils, including the cheaper olive oils.

In the '90s in Italy I took to ground nut oil, which was nice and at the same time one of the cheapest out there. Sadly right now I have a problem with the Sainsburys version of that solidifying in the colder weather.

These days I use a variety of them, including corn and groundnut, canola, rice bran, and mild&light olive oil. The latter mostly when sweating onions for a soup or sauce, not for fierce frying. Though last time I bought corn oil was because I needed frying-grade oil and it was the only option on the shop's shelves. The canola and rice, as well as olive, comes with health claims I'm not qualified to evaluate.

I guess, try a few from what's on your supermarket shelves.

[redsturgeon]

Long ago I gave up on both sunflower and rapeseed after finding they tended to spatter me when used for frying.


These days I use a variety of them, including corn and groundnut, canola, rice bran, and mild&light olive oil.

Canola oil is rapeseed oil.

John

[midnightcatprowl]

I like peanut oil, so far I seem to have been lucky and it has not solidified in the colder weather. This may be a) because the downstairs of my very small terraced house is open plan so heat from the living area also to some extent heats the kitchen cum office cum dining area even though the latter has no independent heating of its own - apart from the effects of cooking, b) I retired from running my shop last year so although I am out a great deal I'm still in the house more than I was when I spent 5 or 6 days a week in my shop 20 miles away from home, so there is more daytime heating going on than there was before. N.B. I suppose also my oils live in a corner of the counter where they are out of reach of sunlight because the breadmaker is next to them but I make bread approx once per week so presumably the oils get a de-solidifying heat boost while the breadmaker is operating.

I use rapeseed oil. At the moment I'm using a cheap 'ordinary' bottle of supermarket rapeseed oil but I do often buy one or other of the various 'cold pressed' rapeseed oils from UK farms. I think it has a better flavour - or perhaps I should say more flavour.

I always have a bottle of fairtrade Palestinian extra virgin olive oil (which has the lovely peppery flavour which I like) on hand. It's wonderful for salad dressings and drizzling on this and that and occasionally simply for spreading on bread, you have to be quick with the spreading out after pouring it on but it makes a great tomato sandwich. I don't fry with it for obvious reasons but I do use it in breadmaking in my Panny - all I can say is that the results taste excellent even though I don't know if you 'should' use an extra virgin olive oil in this way.

Personally I'm unimpressed by corn oil and - perhaps for that reason - more willing to believe it isn't such a healthy oil to use!

I suppose a solution to the problem of oils solidifying in colder weather would be to decant the bottle into some type of dish or wider mouthed container and then simply scoop the oil out rather than pouring it out. I don't think there is any problem about using solidifying oil for cooking, it is only the problem of getting it out of the bottle. Some people do deliberately pour olive oil in a shallow layer into a bowl and then store it in the fridge so that it produces a sort of 'spread' for bread and similar.

[Eboli]

For any recipe that involves all three of garlic, ginger and chilli I use coconut oil. Anything else bog standard light olive oil

[stewamax]

Rapeseed oil.
And I formerly used (as a spread - not for cooking) one of several 'spreadable butters' that contained 20/30% olive oil or sunflower oil but disliked the background taste: I just want to taste the butter.
I now use one that is blended with rapeseed oil and it has no added taste.

[voelkels]

FWIW, I use mostly canola (rapeseed) oil for most of my high-temperature frying along with some olive oil and/or butter for my low-temperature frying. Most of the “better” restaurants that serve mostly sea food around the N’Orleans area all used peanut (groundnut) oil for their frying and changed out the oil quite often, usually every night. I, too, used to use peanut oil for my high-temperature frying but in the last 12 or 10 years the price of that oil has increased to the point that I’ll now use the cheaper canola oil. I don’t know if the restaurants have also made the switch, me.

I suspect that the popularity of frying turkeys in peanut oil the last 15 or so years has led to the price increase of the oil. As N’Orleans restaurant critic & author Tom Fitzmorris has said “I can’t see frying a $7 or $6 turkey in $35 worth of peanut oil, no!”

Axe-u-lee, probably the “best” oil for frying at high temperatures is beef fat because it is highly saturated and has a high “smoke point”. The trick to get crisp, non-greasy fried foods is to fry them at an initial oil temperature of at least 190 degrees C and not to overload the fryer so that the oil’s temperature drops below about 176 degrees C.

C.J.V. - don’t do much high-temperature frying now-a-daze, me

[AndyHewitt]

These days I use only olive oil.