Hot Cooking Tips

 

It has been one of the popular urban myths promoted, that you cannot cook with olive oil without destroying the olive oil and creating a potential carcinoginic  compound. It has never been proven! (probably created by competitive cooking oil producers).

It has been proven by frequent testing - that you can cook with good quality low acidic olive oil (less than 0.4 % freefatty acids) up to approx 210 -215 deg C - well above the average cooking temperature. Above that temperature the oil will start to smoke, as will many other cooking oils.( The smoking is actually a breakdown of the bond between the glyercol and the fat acids within the cooking oil). ref University of Bolonga, Depatment of Food Sciences, 2010

For further reading - NZ consumer magazine August 2009 p15.

Deep frying in New Zealand, Drummond,L., Handbook of Australasian Edible oils p 271 (2008)

The use of olive oil for cooking was highlighted again - by prominent  Sydney Food writers (2015) as a wrongfully attributed urban myth. 

 

When cooking to high temperatures with olive oil, apply the olive oil to the item you are cooking outside the pan, rather than pour into the pan first. This enables the olive oil to coat the item that you are cooking which will add to the flavours rather than simply overheating in the pan.

 

For something different - Try a topping of our high quality extra virgin olive oil on top of ice cream - vanilla flavoured is my favourite! It really enhances the flavours of both the ice cream and the olive oil. 

You can also add praline to give it another dimension - caramelised sugar and nuts.

 

For general cooking - mashed potatoes - add high quality olive oil instead of butter or add with reduced butter when mashing.

 

Steaming fish wrapped in tinfoil - add some high quality olive oil with your herbs and cook for 15 minutes maximum, less for smaller portions. The oil will add another dimension to the fish.