Vegetable Oil Surprise (for me at least).

[Sn1ckers]

Sorry if this is commonly known but, as I’ve been interested in food and cooking for a couple of decades and didn’t know this I’m sure there are others so I’d thought I’d share what was,for me, a surprising fact.

I generally cook with olive (not extra virgin) or rapeseed oil and pay a premium for these over sunflower and vegetable oils. I found out this weekend that, generally in the UK, vegetable oil is actually rapeseed oil but without the inflated price tag.

I know this fact won’t change your life but it may save you a few quid!

Again, sorry if this is well known and I’m just an I’ll informed duffer….

[ZedLeg]

The reason you pay more for decent rape seed oil is that cheap cooking oil has been homogenised and mixed.

You can use decent rapeseed like you would decent olive oil, as well as cooking.

I tend to keep a bottle of nice cold pressed raise seed oil and cheap cooking oil.

[Sn1ckers]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

Which is why I use rapeseed oil. But up until today I bought the £3 per 500ml stuff for general cooking but will now use the £3.75 / 3L vegetable oil alternative….

[LeadFarmer]

Anyone know the differences between a good rapseed oil and ground nut oil, as far as cooking/frying with them is concerned?

I never fry with olive oil as it is supposed to have a low smoke temp, and can be bad for you when it gets above that temperature.

[21TonyK]

LeadFarmer said:

Anyone know the differences between a good rapseed oil and ground nut oil, as far as cooking/frying with them is concerned?

I never fry with olive oil as it is supposed to have a low smoke temp, and can be bad for you when it gets above that temperature.

Good refined peanut oils and rapeseed oils have a similar high smoke point but my experience is rapeseed does impart a flavour (and colour) whereas peanut far less to the point its tasteless and completely colourless.

[ZedLeg]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

Any cooking oil will do that if you leave it smoking for too long. It just happens more with olive oil because of the low smoke point. If you’ve ever noticed a gummy residue on a non stick pan it’s due to this.

[LeadFarmer]

21TonyK said:

LeadFarmer said:

Anyone know the differences between a good rapseed oil and ground nut oil, as far as cooking/frying with them is concerned?

I never fry with olive oil as it is supposed to have a low smoke temp, and can be bad for you when it gets above that temperature.

Good refined peanut oils and rapeseed oils have a similar high smoke point but my experience is rapeseed does impart a flavour (and colour) whereas peanut far less to the point its tasteless and completely colourless.

Would sunflower oil fall into the same category as rapeseed/peanut as far as frying is concerned?
I use Crisp n Dry for frying chips, but I think it's just veg oil that is known by its brand name instead.

[theplayingmantis]

Anything labelled Vegetable Oil is Rapeseed/Canola Oil.

In recent years premium, high end cold pressed Rapeseed oil have been pushed to add value and create a product niche. I would never use them for cooking as you wouldn't with EV Olive Oil. a Pointless waste of money with no benefit.

I do use them where you would use a good Olive Oil, and on their own for dipping/salads/drizzling etc.

If you want to buy homegrown as an alternate to good Olive Oils a good cold pressed Rapeseed oil is the way to go. They have surprisingly different tastes depending on the region grown and its actually quite interesting in a boring way! I think James Martin did a program on it and some taste test and naturally he preferred Yorkshire grown, but confirmed the variety and different tastes you can get from the same product in the UK - i stick with Essex or Suffolk grown cold pressed if i can, it can be hard to track down other regions, but Waitrose usually has a few different ones. Smoked is quite nice!

OP is an idiot and has been wasting money for years i'm afraid!

What i do find interesting is the breadth of oils you can get these days, i don't have the time to try different ones much, but rice bran, grape seed (i think i have tried this years ago and is nice on a salad but may be wrong), ground nut (peanut), corn oil (mazola), Walnut (assume for dressing/drizzling), Sesame (i only use for drizzling on fried rice), hemp seed, cotton seed (never seen in UK myself), flax seed, safflower (i'm sure walkers used this in crisps for a while as has healthier properties than normal sunflower - its same family), avocado (assume dressings/drizzling) are al out there. Too much choice, although i know some are only meant to be used for certain things.

if i had time, inclination and waistline, i would quite like to buy a load of these and do taste test on chips cooked in them to see how they taste and what i like best, but them i'm a 'bit' odd and steer clear of chips as i'm on my annual spring/summer diet maybe an idea for when i'm old and don't care anymore about being blob!

[Flibble]

ZedLeg said:

Any cooking oil will do that if you leave it smoking for too long. It just happens more with olive oil because of the low smoke point. If you’ve ever noticed a gummy residue on a non stick pan it’s due to this.

Oven cleaner takes it off nicely, without damaging the non-stick (as scrubbing might).

[NordicCrankShaft]

I'm a snob with my oils, prefer them not to be a blend of others. Won't touch any olive oil that's a blend of others, like mine single pressed.