Lightly frying some delicious NZ lamb is good and the aroma of the oil hardly plays a role at all. If you are poisoning yourself with the nitrates in raw rabbit food then maybe the aroma of olive oil is a plus. As to olive oil being the healthiest, there is not much evidence for that.
I agree. I suspect itās an impression gained from the whole āMediterranean diet makes you live longerā thing.
On the subject of olive oil and cooking, I recall quite a lot of UK cooking show chefs, notably Nigella and Jamie, would often talk about āordinaryā olive oil, no point using the extra virgin stuff for cooking. Is that still common in the UK? Iām assuming itās some sort of boil it up and scrape the edges sort of production. Over here I donāt think Iāve ever seen Olive oil thatās not extra virgin.
Basically extra virgin is less suited for very high temperature cooking, same as pretty well any cold pressed oil. Refined olive oil has a higher smoke point and can be heated that bit more without undesirable changes.
You can find refined (non-virgin) olive oil everywhere here, from Lidl and Aldi upwards.
1 Like
There is a ton of evidence for that. Thereās a decent summary here, itās easy to find a good number of scientific papers on the subject.
TBF Iāve only ever looked in French supermarkets (and not for a long time) purely out of curiosity, as I would never want to use it anyway. Maybe itās different in CH.
I would just be careful about buying āpomace oilā ā this one is extracted not mechanically, but with solvents. Of course, the solvents are then evaporated (by heating + vacuum), but, well, you knowā¦solvents, critical points and the alikesā¦
As are all non-cold pressed seed oils. Extracted with hexane usually, residues are minimal and will completely evaporate in high temperature cooking. But yes, cold pressed is much better and certainly if not being heated.
1 Like