The Guardian recently ran an article that we really enjoyed. They interviewed London chefs and asked them what common mistakes they see home cooks making. What really gets them riled up? If you look past the over-dramatic tone, the resulting article has quite a few helpful hints.
Here's a couple of our favorite bits - do check out the whole article too...
From Jason Atherton: You always read about olive oil being better for you but it's really only good for adding at the end of cooking and for dressings. I never use it to fry things in because it's too bitter and it has such a low burn point that it will ruin the flavour of your food.
Mario Batali and the fry cooks of Rome would snap Jason Atherton like a twig for making that comment about olive oil being a bitter fry-medium
: )
view guido's profile
agree. I fry food in olive oil most times, no bitter results.
view Leeds's profile
i always heard that once you heat olive oil (meaning frying somethign in it) it loses all its nutritional values and it becomes no different than using regular oil.
view elizabeth in AL's profile
I agree with Guido and leeds, Elizabeth, if it's good for everything else and no different from regular oil for frying in, why shouldn't I still fry in it? I do everything with it including fry, bake and condition my hair so one not-even-Italian chef won't stop me.
view Anne (in Reno)'s profile
i wasn't saying NOT to fry in it, i was just stating what i had heard, hoping someone else either knew if it was otherwise, or if, in fact, that it is the case.
view elizabeth in AL's profile
There is some truth in the high-temperature aspects of using olive-oil. The taste may/do change.
http://www.1stholistic.com/Recipes/A2005/recipe_oil-or-butter.htm
view SeanG's profile