Cooking oils

Second Summer

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Last night I was frying some vegetables for pizza, and I noticed our olive oil was "extra virgin", but it didn't say "cold pressed". It occurred to me that maybe it doesn't matter for oil which is going to be used for frying whether it's cold pressed or not. (Although for salad oil it would matter.) But I don't really know too much about this. We tend to use rapeseed oil (a.k.a. canola oil) for salads and olive oil for frying.

Does anyone have a clue about this?
 
I don't have a bloody clue, but I do hear that coconut oil is supposedly the best (as in, nutritious) oil to use when cooking or frying.
 
I use olive oil from Trader Joe's (no idea what quality it is), or for higher temperature I use canola (aka rapeseed).

I fried potatoes in coconut oil once, and it was nice but I could definitely taste the coconut flavor. It was a bit weird but then I just tossed some yellow curry powder in and magically had crispy curry potatoes. Then I didn't use the coconut oil for a long time and it started to look weird so I threw it away.
 
We tend to use rapeseed oil (a.k.a. canola oil) for salads and olive oil for frying.

I think you're doing it backwards - olive oil's structure changes over higher heats, and it loses its beneficial properties, while canola oil can tolerate higher temperatures.

That being said, I use olive oil for everything other than baking, in which I use canola oil. I used to use canola oil for frying, and then something about the taste started to become very off putting and unpleasant to me. I save the better olive oil for salads and pasta dishes where it's only lightly warmed - for everything else, I use lesser quality olive oil.

Coconut oil has many beneficial qualities, but heat affects coconut oil negatively, and those beneficial qualities are lost. I use coconut oil as a spread on bread, instead of margarine (which I have been avoiding because of the palm oil).
 
I think you're doing it backwards - olive oil's structure changes over higher heats, and it loses its beneficial properties, while canola oil can tolerate higher temperatures.
Ah, it seems you are correct! (Even though I was convinced you were utterly wrong, hehe.) It doesn't seem the difference is that big though, between the smoke points of canola oils and olive oils. It seems it all depends on what kind of olive oil and canola oil you use. Extra virgin olive oil seems like a bad idea for frying.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoke_point
 
Refined coconut oil has absolutely no coconut taste and is the best for frying because it can handle high heats. Not cheap, though. Sunflower oil has a smoke point of 450 degress Fahrenheit, which is the same as peanut oil. That's cheap in Canada - I have no idea about elsewhere.
 
The warehouse stores, like Sam's Club and Costco, have peanut oil at a reasonable cost, except it comes in huge containers. Even when my ex was here, it took years to use up, and he used a lot when he cooked Chinese food, and he also liked deep fried food. I sent the deep fryer off with him, since I'm not fond of deep fryed stuff myself.

So, for me, the huge jugs of peanut oil from those places would take way too long to use up. I think Amazon has a reasonable price - $19.95 for three bottles of 64 oz. each: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005KRXKEQ/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER.
 
Hmm. I use olive oil for cooking and drizzling. I thought olive oil was meant to be healthy in cooking. I like sesame oil for flavouring tofu but I haven't tried peanut oil. I might try rapeseed when my olive oil runs out.

I used to use flax seed oil for salad dressings but I had to combine it with apple cider vinegar to disguise the taste as that oil tastes almost fishy to me.
 
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Hmm. I use olive oil for cooking and drizzling. I thought olive oil was meant to be healthy in cooking. I like sesame oil for flavouring tofu but I haven't tried peanut oil. I might try rapeseed when my olive oil runs out.
There's very conflicting information about the supposed hydrogenation of olive oil when it's used at high temperatures. (See the links posted by Shyvas above.)

I use 100% olive oil for frying or extended sauteeing. I don't use cold pressed or extra virgin for those applications, simply because of the price and the fact that why use expensive oils if their taste is going to be in any way compromised by the high temps.
 
Yes, those two links are to olive oil industry sites, but I'm reading the same information on other sites - that changing a cis-fat to a trans-fat will not occur on a home stove.

And I agree - fats are fats - they shouldn't be used more than necessary, even the healthier ones.
 
Does stir-frying count as frying-frying? I use olive oil when I stir fry veggies.