Good evening, Foodies!
In going with our back-and-forth plan, today we step back into our pantry and cupboards for another look at what we should have, what we should avoid, and how we can use it. Today is something you might be familiar with... Scratch that, if you cook, this is something you are unavoidably familiar with- Oil. Be it dressing, sauteing, frying, or just about anything else, chances are if you've cooked, you've used an oil. They are integral for a vinaigrette or adding body to dressings, they're essential for high heat cooking, and, some of you may be surprised to know, there is no one supreme oil for everything, and just about every oil has a purpose. First, though, let's go over what makes oil so fantastic for cooking-
--At room temp, oils are a smooth, if slightly viscous, liquid. This makes it much easier to work with in non-heated applications than animal fats or butters, especially in larger amounts. This state also means that for emulsifying room temp ingredients, the emulsification will hold much longer than a fat that would solidify at or slightly below room temp.
COOKING VOCAB- Emulsify- the process of blending a fat and liquid together to form a uniform and smooth result. This is achieved on a molecular level by the fat molecules surrounding and binding water molecules, preventing the water from sinking below the fat. A smooth vinaigrette, for example (one that doesn't have oil floating on top of everything else) is an emulsification or emulsified sauce. To make an emulsification, You need an emulsifying agent to stabilize the oil and water, such as mustard, egg, or soy. More on this later.
--Many oils have a very high smoke point. What this means is that they can get very, VERY hot before they start to break down and start to burn (burning your cooking fat is never a good thing, and I have yet to see a burnt fat being used to improve a dish rather than detract or all-out ruin it). What this means for us is that if we want to cook something over a high heat and not have a burned or rancid taste added to it, we use oil instead of, say, butter. While other fats do have cooking applications, high heat is pretty much oil's game alone. (SIDE NOTE- if you are cooking with oil and it begins to smoke, that does not mean it's burned and thus ruined. It just means the oil's as hot as it's going to get, so add whatever you're going to cook in the oil now, or else the oil will really start to break down and get ruined. Some recipes will call for you to heat the oil until it starts to smoke, as insurance that you're adding it to the hottest possible pan.)
--While they're not unique in this regard, oils can have flavors infused into them. Citrus, herbs, spices, you name it,oil can take on some of it's flavors. Just let whatever you want to infuse sit submerged in the oil, and voila!
--Lastly, many oils just have delicious full flavors thanks to what they're made from. 'nuff said.
Okay, so now that we know why oil is great, what oil should we buy?
In viewing our standard grocery store (and a bigger list when we get to specialty food stores), we know that we have several cheap oils (canola, vegetable, peanut, sunflower) and more expensive oils (olive, walnut, infused olive oils, avocado, coconut, etc). Now I'm not going to list every oil on the market here because there's just too many to count at this point, and frankly some oils are either too specialty use-based or have too short a shelf life for the purposes of this blog (If you ever want to know specifics of some oddball oil, just let me know). We're going to give a couple solid examples of what there is, and why we use it (or not).
Standard cooking oils- These are the oils you're probably most familiar with, or at least see the most often at the grocery store. Plastic bottle, pale yellow oil- canola, vegetable, peanut, and sunflower (recently, Grapeseed oil also started popping up on grocery shelves, also a good decision). These oils don't really contribute much to flavor or nutrition, and with the exception of grapeseed (which has a very neutral clean character) really shouldn't be in any raw application for food. What they DO have going for them in spades, however, is a really high smoke point, and they practically never go rancid (when oil basically breaks down and goes bad. Rancid oil has a musty, mealy kind of taste. no fun). These are preferred for heated applications, because their lack of flavor means that you'll taste what you're cooking in the oil instead of the oil itself. I personally use a bit of canola or grapeseed oil for my heated prep. Yeah, that's right, olive oilers. I said it. Unless you want to taste olive oil in your dish (and hey, sometimes that's what you want), you should stick to neutral oils for cooking. Your palate and wallet will thank you. Speaking of Olive oil...
Olive oil- I could write a whole blog just on olive oil. No other oil has received the attention or has the history that olive oil does. Just as there are wineries with distinct characteristics based on region and variety of grape, there are olive oil farms with just as storied a history and just as much variety of product the world over. However, for simplicity's sake, here's the rule of thumb with olive oil- In California, olive oil has the most fruit and butter notes, very light and mild. The further east we go, into Italy, France, and Spain, we get (with exceptions, of course) a very different product, the flavor more peppery and dark. I urge you to try them all, Every one is absolutely delicious, and goes better with different things. Always go with extra virgin, cold-pressed. End of story. Virgin or blended oil has a marked drop in quality, and really belongs in the cooking oil category (or just not in your pantry at all). I like to keep a bottle of decent quality oil on hand for the occasional cooked application (again, when I want that flavor in my finished product), and a higher quality bottle or two on hand for dressings or cold applications. For your "nice" bottles, your bottle should say what region of what country your oil came from, if not what type of olive. If it doesn't, move on. Olive oil keeps for quite a while before going rancid, keep oil out of the light and out of temperature extremes to make it last longer (that advice goes across the board).
Walnut and Avocado oils- Actually, let's just say this is for most all specialty oils (except coconut oil. High smoke point, very mild character, light coconut taste. I like toasting bread crumbs with it). These are oils that are generally more volatile (more likely to break down and go rancid) than our other oils. So that means no hot uses. These are exclusively for dressing cold stuff, or giving a drizzle over hot stuff once it's come off the heat. it also means that you need to take special care in storing them. Many volatile oils are sold in opaque bottles or can-bottles to keep light out, and should also be kept in the fridge. The nice thing about these are they're an easy way to get the flavor of whatever they're made from into a dish without necessarily adding the ingredient (if you don't like the texture of walnuts, but want that nice nutty flavor). They're also usually quite potent, so a little goes a long way (you'll notice these oils are sold in smaller bottles than olive or neutral oil).
Okay, so now we have a general understanding of our oils and our vinegars, so we're gonna make a vinaigrette. This calls back to the term "emulsify" we talked about earlier, using mustard as a binding agent to emulsify the vinegar into the oil for a nice dressing. For starters, here's a nice easy and accessible balsamic vinaigrette-
1/4 C balsamic vinegar
3/4 C olive oil
3 tsp dijon mustard
1 garlic clove, chopped
1/2 tsp sugar
salt and pepper to taste
whisk everything but the oil in a bowl, mixing well. whisking fairly quickly with one hand, slowly pour the oil in a small steady stream into the bowl with the other. Make sure you're whisking the entire time the oil is pouring, and then for about 30 seconds after. (this steady whisking while adding our oil is the emulsifying process).
There you go! Done and done. Now I'm sure most of you know a vinaigrette's application as a salad dressing, and that's all well and good. However, a vinaigrette can also be good when added to cooking meat or veggies, or in some cases even as a marinade in and of itself. A vinaigrette is actually one of the easiest ways to bring a bright wonderful flavor into your dishes, just by adding a spoonful or so at the right time. Seriously, next time you cook chicken thighs or breasts, splash a little balsamic vinaigrette on them while they're in the pan or oven (for the pan, wait until they're about 2/3 of the way cooked).
One last thing- the general rule of vinaigrette is 1 part acid to 3 parts oil, and have some agent in there to emulsify the two (usually mustard). However, if you don't mind stirring or shaking your dressing before using, you don't need the mustard, and if you want a brighter flavor and less fat, by all means change up the proportions! (For cooked applications, I like an even 1-1 ratio for oil and vinegar). There's no oil or vinegar that can't be used, so play around with it and see what you come up with!
Until next time, be a well-oiled cooking machine.
