Flavouring your own olive oil

[escargot]

Inspired by something I remember vaguely from Jamie @ Home.

I was browsing some 'deli' type food shop a few weeks ago and noticed that they had all sorts of different flavours of olive oil such as chilli, garlic etc, now I also spotted that these oils were in some cases more than double that of standard olive oil.

With that in mind, I decided to have a crack at making a home made chilli version. Well, it's obviously a piece of cake (slice chillis in half top to bottom and stuff in an empty bottle), I put in 1/3 extra virgin, 1/3 virgin & 1/3 groundnut oil. So far you can definitely taste the chilli, but it's rather mild. Definitely doesn't blow your head off, but then again, it's probably not supposed to.

I may chuck in some peppercorns & coriander seeds too, just for sts & giggles.

Anyone else done any experimenting?

[Rude Girl]

I brought a rope of garlic back from France last year, and stripped about 5 or 6 bulbs and put them in to olive oil just to preserve them - fished a clove out whenever I wanted one. The oil from that was pretty good.

I wonder if you chopped chillis and bruised the seeds a bit and put them in the oil, and then later strained it and put the pretty whole chillis in, if that would make it stronger? Bet you could do the same with lemon zest or rosemary as well. Be great with the BBQ season coming up.

[bint]

This has been discussed before on PH and the one thing that sticks in my mind (as I too keep meaning to do this and instead end up buying it) is be REALLY careful when making garlic oil - it can give you food poisoning.

Couldn't remember the exact reasons, but a quick google came up with this;

http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/iyh-vsv/food-aliment/garlic...

[Cotty]

I thought you had to use dried ingedients. I used to make my own flavoured chilli and garlic oil (one of each). Just tip some dried chilli or garlic into a bottle of mild olive oil and after a short while you can really taste the flavour when you cook it or pour over a salad

[coolcatmaz]

I know someone that flavours their own olive oil, she normally has a variety but main ones are chilli and then a herb one with rosemary, thyme and a little garlic.

The herb one is gorgeous rubbed on the skin of meat before roasting - especially lamb

[Don]

We made Rosemary oil. It was quite good - but reading about the potential for very, vary nasty food poisoning I would only ever now do the versions where you simmer the oil for a period to sterilise all the ingredients...

[cannedheat]

swerni said:

we make chilli oil.

Just dry out some chilli's from the garden, slit them open and drop the in.

Also works for Vodka

A couple of vanilla pods in a bottle of vodka tastes awesome, especially if kept somewhere cool and dark for 6 months of so.

[jessica]

cannedheat said:

swerni said:

we make chilli oil.

Just dry out some chilli's from the garden, slit them open and drop the in.

Also works for Vodka

A couple of vanilla pods in a bottle of vodka tastes awesome, especially if kept somewhere cool and dark for 6 months of so.

that sounds fabulous.
we made blackberry vodka last year. its rich and very creamy.
i am definately going to do the vanilla one soon now.

[escargot]

Don said:

We made Rosemary oil. It was quite good - but reading about the potential for very, vary nasty food poisoning I would only ever now do the versions where you simmer the oil for a period to sterilise all the ingredients...

Yeah, my chilli oil went a bit funny so I binned it. I guess dried chillies would work better.

[Scraggles]

good tip about the garlic, makes perfect sense - tend to use garlic puree or fresh garlic, dried herbs and spices for the oils as wet herbs tend to decompose in the oil and go bad

[Nefarious]

For use in anything far eastern, groundnut oil with lightly crushed whole chillis and a couple of bashed dried shrimp is very good after a week or two's infusion.

You can also give the next batch a little head-start by starting the new one with the last third of the oil from the previous batch.

[Glassman]

I've been told the best way to flavour oil (esp with garlic / fresh chillies) is to heat a quantity in a saucepan and add fresh garlic. Let it cool and strain into bottle.

Or nip down to Borough Market.

[507bhp]

Bottled botchalism. Great!

[Don]

507bhp said:

Bottled botchalism. Great!

<pedant>Botulism.</pedant>

[507bhp]

Don said:

507bhp said:

Bottled botchalism. Great!

<pedant>Botulism.</pedant>

Where was the spell checker last night eh?

[507bhp]

Botulism risk sparks chili sauce recall!

July 19, 2007 -- Castleberry's Food Company has recalled 10 of its canned products, including three hot dog chili sauces, after at least four people were hospitalized in the first U.S. botulism case in commercially canned goods in several decades, according to the FDA.

Botulism can be fatal. It's a muscle-paralyzing disease caused by a toxin made by a bacterium called Clostridium botulinum.

What Is Botulism?

There are three main kinds of botulism:

* Food-borne botulism, which is the type involved in the current recall
* Infant botulism, which affects a small number of susceptible infants each year who have the botulism-making bacteria in their intestinal tract
* Wound botulism, which happens when wounds are infected with the botulism-making bacteria

According to background information on the FDA's web site, home-canned foods are more often a source of botulism than are commercially canned foods, which probably reflects the commercial canners' great awareness and better control of the required heat treatment.

[drfrank]

Anyone tried Truffle Oil ?

Is it something worth making or just buy it ready made ?

I absoloutely love the taste of truffles (but don't have the wallet to match) so truffle oil is the cheaper alternative.

[Watch-Collector]

Its fine , but dont try to make it yourself. And when you buy it it only lasts a few months so unless you have it for breakfast every day only buy a small bottle. Its Oil flavoured with truffles not the other way around. Sounds obvious but many think otherwise!!
As far as chilli oil/garlic is concerned , sometimes its better to fry dry or fresh Chillis in olive oil and then remove when they start to colour and let the oil to sit and cool. Then use it to flavour whatever you need it to . Salad or stir fry. Saves all the messing about and possible health problems!! And it will always be fresh. It never seems to mature and get hotter with months of storing so the best flavour IMHO is always the fresh flavour;-)

Edited by Watch-Collector on Tuesday 21st October 22:54