Fats and oils

The choice of oil is quite important: you need to match the flavour/texture of the oil with the type of cuisine. The flavour of olive oil would not work well in a curry, and the texture of ghee would be all wrong in a pasta dish.

One thing though - it's not a good idea to cook in sesame oil as it burns very easily and has a strong flavour. It should be added to the dish towards the end of cooking.

I use peanut oil for oriental stir frying, because you can get it mega hot.

Oil is very important some are flavoured, such a walnut or sesame, some are not. Groundnut (peanut) can be heated to very high temps but extra virgin should be no more than warmed. I tend to avoid the generic vegetable oils for deep frying and use rapesead instead as its less greasy. Last year I made my own beach nut oil which turned out very well (took quite a while!)

I only managed a small bottle. I collected rather a large amount of beech nuts (quite easy) and put them in a blender shell and all in batches, then squeezed the pulp by ringing with a tea towel then left the liqiud to settle and seperate! Got the idea from the 'Food For Free' Book.