All about cooking Oil (Well, not all, but what we should be concern about)

There are many people who show me face in awe and fear, when I say I use Olive oil to do my stir-fry and sautéed, namely the Chinese cooking method. Some even express concern that I use Coconut oil.

Generally, Coconut oil is being demonise by a lot of Singaporeans while they still savour the delicious Nasi Lemak, where the rice are cooked in Coconut milk. Maybe it is time they should goggle the word "cooking oil" and try to find out about what is good and what is bad. I google it and found a very good table, which shows the different properties of different cooking oil.

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2003/10/15/cooking-oil.aspx

Table: Difference of Cooking Oil Properties. Source Mercola.com (Linked above)

The above table shows that Olive Oil is high in Mono-unsaturated and low in Saturated fats. While Coconut oil is on the other end of the scale.

Image from http://coconutoil.com/

When I do deep-frying (some things are still nice when deep fried, no devils about that) I would rather use a healthy saturated cooking oil, as the burning point are high and good properties are releases. I used palm or coconut oil, which both are recommended for deep-frying. This is a very good article about Coconut oil.

As for Olive oil, there are quite a few different grade where each can be used in different situation. Ever heard people around telling you not to use Olive oil for cooking? Yes they are right! But what they should actually be more precise is, do not use those Olive oil with "Extra Virgin" or "Virgin" labeled on them, for cooking. Generally, they are not good when heated up. They'll lose all the antioxidant properties and may release chemicals which increase free-radicals, that harms your body. Generally, those Virgin ladies... I mean Extra virgin or virgin Olive oil should be reserved for food uncooked or serve cold, A.K.A. Salad, or even some sashimi. (wondering anyone pour oil into their raw seafood?)

For cooking, I use only light Olive oil. These wonderful are the last last press (A.K.A. they are squeeze until the very end and what is remain). These should be the one that you can safely used for stir-fry, sauteed etc etc, the Chinese style cooking which I did a lot. Just for your information, I will never buy Olive oil that does not label properly whether they are virgin or not (pun intended ;P ) Example, I came across some that say "Pure Olive Oil". Maybe they want to stress the word pure as some people think some brand are not pure or mixed? You never know.

So there are at least 3 bottle of oil in my house, Light Olive, The Virgin and Da Coconut (I change to palm occasionally, one should never stick to one always, as in food only hor, don't quote that in other places like Relationship etc. etc.. Same good food everyday will turn bad one day, and makes Sam a boring person)

Some people ever asked me, is Sesame oil save for cooking? I am sure if you google, you would find out the answer. Generally, Sesame oil loses it's good properties if heated up badly. I generally dash it on my food after i turn off the fire. Even if i did use it in cooking, it would be the very last item i drop in, before I turn my gas off. I know I know, there are some great dish done by famous chef that stir-fry their beef in sesame oil, it gives great flavour and it's delish, no doubt about it.

Everybody is on smart phone today (at least those I know), why don't we spend some time to find out what we put into our mouth?