Cobram Estate Blog - Cooking With Olive Oil
Thought From Gabriel #1
Date: 28/11/2008
To become a very good cook you need to learn to cook new dishes regularly and to practise them three or four times within a month in order to master them. Each time I learn a new dish I become familiar with new ingredients, new seasonings and new techniques.
Some dishes have an incredible influence in your life as a cook. One such dish for me was preparing my first salade Niçoise when I was just nineteen and working as a young chef in the famous Paris seafood restaurant called ‘Prunier’. It was 1974 and the restaurant had been operating for more than one hundred years.
A salade Niçoise is quite a sophisticated salad composed of poached tuna, small green beans, potatoes, young green salad leaves, hard-boiled egg, olives, tomato, red onion and more. What was so special for me about preparing this lovely summer salad was that for the first time in my life I used extra virgin olive oil. In the dressing with red wine vinegar and lemon juice, the oil marries all the ingredients together and it’s a real classic. I thought to myself, ‘Wow! What an ingredient!’
Nowadays, extra virgin olive oil is one of my top ten favourite ingredients. I could easily give up potatoes, but not olive oil! What would you give up for olive oil? Let me know.
Gabriel Gate
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Frying With Extra Virgin olive Oil
Date: 15/08/2008
Frying is one of the few characteristics common to the entire Mediterranean area, be it European, Asian or African, and to the three religions practised, Christian, Muslim and Jewish. It is one of the oldest methods in existence of cooking food.
Recent investigations have shown that frying is beneficial to the organism, particularly from the physiological point of view. Because of this, it has extended to areas where formerly it was not as popular. Whether the food fried is digested easily or lies heavily on the stomach depends to a great extent on the type of oil used, the temperature of the oil and the manner in which the food was fried. Studies undertaken on healthy subjects and patients with gastroduodenal problems (gastritis, ulcer, liver and biliary complaints) have shown that there is no relationship between food fried in olive oil and these illnesses.
When vegetable oils are heated, for example whilst frying, the health benefits of the oil break down quicker than other natural oils such as extra virgin olive oil. This breakdown also varies according to temperature and length of time heated, number of times used, manner of frying (in continuous frying it changes less), and the type of food being fried (frying fish, especially oily fish, increases the polyunsaturated acid content of the oil, facilitating its decomposition).
Olive oil is ideal for frying. In proper temperature conditions, without over-heating, it undergoes no substantial structural change and keeps its nutritional value better than other oils, not only because of the antioxidants but also due to its high levels of oleic acid. Its high smoking point (210ºC) is substantially higher than the ideal temperature for frying food (180ºC). Those fats with lower critical points, such as corn and butter, break down at this temperature and form toxic products.
Another advantage of using olive oil for frying is that it forms a crust on the surface of the food that impedes the penetration of oil and improves its flavour. Food fried in olive oil has a lower fat content than food fried in other oils, making olive oil more suitable for weight control. Olive oil, therefore, is the most suitable, the lightest and the tastiest medium for frying.
Olive oil goes further than other oils, and not only can it be re-used more often than others, it also increases in volume when reheated, so less is required for cooking and frying. The digestibility of heated olive oil does not change even when re-used for frying several times.
Olive oil should not be mixed with other fats or vegetable oils and should not generally be used more than four or five times.
The oil used for frying should always be hot; if it is cold the food will soak up the oil.
There should always be plenty of oil in the pan when deep frying. If only a small amount is used, not only will it burn more easily but the food being fried will be undercooked on top and overcooked on the bottom.
TEMPERATURE TYPE OF FOOD
Medium (130–145º C) High water content: vegetables, potatoes, fruit…
Hot (155– 170º C) Coated in batter, flour or breadcrumbs, forming a crust
Very hot (175–190º C) Small, quickly fried: small fish, croquettes
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