Choose the right oil for the right outcome

“If you use a strongly flavoured olive oil to make up a mayonnaise you’re not going to get a very pleasant result – it’s important to choose the right oils for the right outcomes.”

That’s the word from chef Peter Wright, who extols the life-extending properties of the Mediterranean diet and so likes to stick with olive oil where possible – while acknowledging it’s not a one size fits all solution.

“My rule of thumb is that the less processing of food you have to do, the better. Olives are full of oil, and putting them in a centrifuge to get the oil out is a pretty simple process, as opposed to extracting oil from a sunflower or canola seed,” Peter says.

“If you go to any local farmer’s market you’ll find gourmet oils, but some are designed for cooking and others for splashing onto a salad or putting on a plate to dip your bread in.

“Generally speaking, the oils you use post-cooking tend to be the more expensive ones, which are darker in colour, with a stronger aroma and quite bitter. Whereas when you’re cooking you don’t necessarily want to choose a strong oil – you want it to emulsify or fry well.

“You don’t want to deep fry in olive oil because it will burn too quickly given it has a low smoke point – it won’t deliver the correct outcome. Thankfully there are now some terrific suppliers in the deep frying world and a great choice of oils which makes it easier to marry up the product with the solution you’re seeking.

“And it’s always been a pain for get rid of used oil, but now there are suppliers who provide a turkey solution allowing repurposing of used oil and some even run their delivery trucks on recycled oil. So from an environmental point of view there are some really good things happening – Cookers are a classic example.”

Understand your cost per serve

Lee-Ann Castles, national core range optimisation lead at Goodman Fielder, echoes Peter’s words in saying that “when I’m speaking to customers, I talk about fit for purpose oil, and ask what they are planning to use their oil for. At the end of the day, oil is a cost to your business so you need to understand your cost per serve to make sure you’re making the right choice.”  

Canola is the predominant oil used in Australia for deep frying, currently sitting around 65 per cent of total oil use in our foodservice and industrial market. This is different from overseas, with palm oil the most readily used worldwide. In fact palm oil is considered the most sustainable oil in the market, in that each palm frond produces every season across a 14 year life cycle, whereas canola is a crop which once harvested has to be replanted.

Lee-Ann says that in addition to canola, soy bean and cottonseed oil are popular choices for deep frying, along with high oleic canola and high oleic sunflower varieties designed to fry at higher temperatures.

“These products extend the fry life of the oil, so it costs more to purchase them outright, but in the long run the cost per serve is lower.

“And if you’re deep frying with products that are battered, crumbed or coated, you need to look at how you’re maintaining your oil - because good oil maintenance is key to getting the maximum fry life out of your oil.

“For example, when was the last time you had your deep fryer calibrated? It’s like servicing your motor vehicle – you need to service your fryer, because if you’re cooking at incorrect temperatures you’re basically throwing money down the drain.”

Lee-Ann points out if the cooking temperature’s too low, your product will be absorbing too much oil and you’ll need to top your oil up more often than otherwise necessary.

“It often happens that a business will swap one type of oil for another but without realising they need to adjust the temperature depending upon what type of oil they’re using. So they’re either running too low or too high which ends up burning the oil.

“At the end of each shift you should be skimming and filtering your oil, otherwise it will end up costing you money. For example you might be buying a drum of vegetable oil at around $55 but then if you run it at too high or too low a temperature or your fryer isn’t properly calibrated, you may only get four to six days’ fry life out of it. Whereas if everything was maintained correctly and it was an average use 201 fryer, you should be getting five to seven or eight days out of your oil if it’s maintained properly with no temperature abuse.

“Generally the industry doesn’t talk about this enough, so Goodman Fielder is taking a lead within the market to start educating customers around maintenance and what they should be looking for based on the products they’re cooking with. If you spend half an hour at the end of each day to filter your oil you’re going to significantly extend its fry life and save yourself money. We’re also trying to get the focus back to cost per serve and having customers understand the value of the product they’re using.

“Another problem we see sometimes when customers are using ‘swap and go’ oil providers is that there is a set date for pickup of used oil, so customers are throwing out oil before it’s actually reached the end of its fry life. If you invest $800 on a Testo cooking oil tester which tests the carbon levels within the used oil, you’ll know when actually is the right time to change your oil – you won’t be throwing it out prematurely.”

Infusing oils to add flavour

Chef Gary Johnson says Australia produces great quality extra virgin olive oil, adding that as it doesn’t travel long distances well, it’s always best to source locally. “Mainly in the wine regions across Victoria and SA, they grow the best olives which are beautiful grassy green and cold pressed. Olives are a superfood in themselves, rich in monounsaturated fats, high in antioxidants and anti-inflammatories, with 20 different types of polyphenols in them – the list goes on!”

Gary is also a keen proponent of infusing oils with herbs and spices to enhance flavour. “I learnt to infuse oils 30 years ago in London, when I was chef garde manger (cold larder chef) at the Four Seasons hotel. We would put the ingredients together, then vacuum pack them in sous vide circulators at around 70°C for one to three hours, depending upon how intense or full flavoured we wanted them. If you’re adding a couple of handfuls of rosemary one hour might suffice, whereas if you’re using something more delicate like sage, saffron or truffle you might take three hours to get the full flavour exuding through the oil.”

He adds that you don’t need to use the sous vide method – “a pot with a thermometer is just as good, and once you’ve let the oil steep and infuse you can decant it into bottles and it will last around two to three months depending upon your cold storage climate – because the flavour will begin to deteriorate over time.

“The other thing I like to do is blanch soft green herbs like basil and parsley in really hot oil for five seconds in a deep fryer – then blend after 10 minutes in cold oil. You get a beautiful rich green colour and flavour, and once you put that on the plate it’s just amazing around a terrine or salad.

“You can store these oils in the fridge, pull them out, warm them up and they’re ready to go. They’re super easy to make and you can mix and match oils with vinegars to add more flavour. For example a nice saffron oil will complement a honeyed sherry vinegar, whereas a chilli and coriander infused olive oil will go with a lime vinegar, or a minted olive oil with a strawberry vinegar. Those marriages are wonderful and once you’ve added them to a beautiful seafood salad it really packs a punch!

“You can also use oils to prepare beautiful confits. When I worked in Istanbul we used to poach a lot of vegies in olive oil and make up a confit with a little bit of salt and some herbs, some wonderful marinated beans, pulses, olives, rosemary, chilli, lemon and garlic – it’s just a fantastic flavour.

“You can even add salted and cured meats like chicken and pork and it’s amazing. Tuna or salmon prepared this way with a little splash of balsamic in there as well is delicious, it just falls apart!”