by Tom Stobart
It is common knowledge that Normandy cooks with butter, Provence with oil, eastern France with lard and south-western France with goose fat – not always, of course, but often enough to give a regional flavour. Pastry is usually made with butter, margarine, lard, or a mixture; or it may be made with a modern hydrogenated fat. Each gives a different result. My neighbour makes her pastry with olive oil; the result is very rich and crumbly.
There is an incredible difference between a curry made with ghee, coconut oil, til (sesame-seed oil), or Dalda (hydrogenated fat), and this comes through any amount of spice and chilli. The Chinese do not use butter. The lard that is much used in Chinese cooking is not the tasteless steam-stripped version that comes in packets, but the more flavourful rendered pork fat. Chinese cooking also uses oils such as sesame and peanut, but the sesame oil which is employed as a flavouring is a virgin one which has not been stripped of its natural taste.
These few examples are mentioned here only to show the enormous significance of the choice of oil or fat in cooking. The most important fats and oils in the alphabetical list below have their own entries elsewhere in this book.
Almond oil is sweet and is made by pressing milled sweet *almonds (the less shapely varieties) or from bitter almonds. In bitter almond oil, traces of hydrocyanic acid and benzaldehyde have to be eliminated. Almond oil is expensive, and may be bought from chemists. Its main use is in confectionery, both on moulds to stop boiled sugar sticking and on the marble slabs where hot sugar is to be worked or toffee kneaded. It is valuable in the kitchen to coat moulds for sweet things.
Animal fats tend to be entirely saturated (containing on average over 40% saturated fatty acids) and so are used less than they used to be in days before cholesterol was considered to be a health factor. However, they are vital flavours in regional cooking. Many are dealt with below.
Arachide. Peanut oil (see below).
Avocado oil. The *avocado has a high fat content, around 30% and is sometimes used as a source of oil. In this, 20% of the fatty acids are saturated, 65% are monounsaturated, and some 15% are polyunsaturated.
Beef fat is suitable for frying, but is rarely available in modern families which eat small, lean joints. It contains more saturated fatty acids than any other fat in general use, but farmers in the north of England where I lived as a boy regularly ate bread and *dripping and lived long and active lives. In Yorkshire, beef dripping is still used for frying chips, and alternatives are despised.
*Butter consists mainly of butterfat. It has 40% of saturated fatty acids and very few polyunsaturated fatty acids (4%). It remains the most delicious cooking fat, but may need to be clarified before use.
Candlenut oil is used somewhat locally in South East Asia, where *candlenuts grow.
* Castor oil is medicinal, as well as nasty. I have heard of it being used to grease the iron plate used for baking in India.
Chicken fat is not too saturated for an animal fat, with 35% saturated fatty acids, 50% monounsaturated (i.e. neutral) and 15% polyunsaturated, depending on what the chicken has eaten. Chicken fat is softer and nearer in consistency to oil than other animal fats. When clarified, it fries well and can be heated to 200°C (392°F) without burning. It is much used in south-western France and in Jewish cooking, perhaps because it is the nearest thing to butter which they can use with meat, as dietary laws forbid meat and dairy products being used together.
Coconut oil is one of the most saturated of vegetable fats and has an almost buttery consistency. Saturated fatty acids form about 75% of the total. However, the taste of *coconut is necessary in much tropical cooking, though it is often added in the form of coconut milk or cream. Coconut oil itself may be needed in the cooking of India, South East Asia, the West Indies, and the Pacific. It is a common constituent of vegetable cooking fats and margarines and is good for frying as it can be heated to 250°C (482°F) before it burns. It is not, however, very easily digested.
Cocoa butter is the fat which is pressed out of cocoa beans. White or yellowish and with a chocolate smell, it is full of highly saturated fatty acids and is firm at room temperature. It is a main constituent of bar chocolate and is not usually a kitchen ingredient.
Cod-liver oil is very rich in vitamins, like other fish liver oils. It is especially so in vitamin D (which may be lacking in the diets of the less sunny northern countries) and is used as a diet supplement.
Colza oil is extracted by cold-pressing the seeds of Brassica napus (rape) and B.campestris (field mustard). It is used in salad oils and cooking oil mixtures in Europe.
Corn oil is expressed from the germ of maize (which in some is 50% oil). It contains 15% saturated fatty acids, but 35% monounsaturated and 50% polyunsaturated. From the cook’s point of view, it is all right for frying, but not in the top bracket as a raw oil. You can make mayonnaise with it very easily, as it readily emulsifies, but the result is rather nasty. Some people also detect unpleasant flavours in corn oil.
*Cotton-seed oil. A good oil for cooking and salads. It contains 25% saturated fatty acids, 20% monounsaturated and 50% polyunsaturated.
*Dripping usually means beef fat (see above).
Fish oils generally have a low saturated fat content. Herring oil, for instance, has 20% saturated fatty acids, 45% monounsaturated and 50% polyunsaturated. Oily fish may be as much as 30% fat and are likely to be high in the fat-soluble vitamins.
Frying oils. Oils that are marketed as frying oils may have a cotton-seed oil base or be a mixture of vegetable oils; they will normally be cheaper than those labelled as salad oils. They are sometimes perfumed with lemon, but essentially are highly-stripped oils with little or no taste of their own. When they are used for deep frying, it matters little from a dietary viewpoint what oils are in the mixture.
Ghee. Indian clarified *butter.
Goose fat is a good cooking fat, with some of the characteristics of chicken fat. It is soft and can be heated to around 200°C (390°F) before it burns. It imparts a characteristic taste to any food cooked with it.
Grape-pip oil. An oil extracted from the residues of grapes.
Groundnut oil. Peanut oil (see below).
Horse fat, claimed by a few to be the best for deep frying and used in some restaurants, may be obtained from the horse butchers, which are common in European countries.
Hydrogenated fats. Many brands of cooking fat, such as Crisco, Spry, Trex and Dalda are made by hydrogenating oils from various sources; they look approximately like lard. Though lacking in flavour, these products can be very useful in everyday cooking.
*Lard is purified pork fat.
Linseed oil is pressed from the seed of the flax plant (Linum usitatissimum). It is an important ingredient in paints and varnishes, for which it is extracted with heat and pressure or with solvents. However, such oils are only for painting. Cold-pressed linseed oil, on the other hand, is used as a food oil, and has very healthy qualities. It is particularly rich in one of the essential fatty acids, linoleic acid.
*Margarine is made from oils which may be partly hardened by hydrogenation and emulsified with water containing salt and whey or skimmed milk.
Mineral oils. In general, these are very undesirable in foods, and there are horrific stories of the effects produced when unscrupulous vendors have sold them for frying. However, highly purified mineral oil of the type which is used medicinally under the name of liquid paraffin is common in food production. A little of the mineral oil used to lubricate machinery, such as choppers and mincers, gets into food. Mineral oil is used as a defoaming compound, to coat and give a shine to dried fruit and, in confectionery, to seal and moisture-proof surfaces. Although it is an inert substance, its power of coating and isolating interferes with the body’s absorption of vitamins A and D. Although the quantities eaten with food are probably too small to matter, liquid paraffin in quantity can cause severe medical problems, so it is best avoided. Petroleum jelly (such as Vaseline) and paraffin wax are similar mineral hydrocarbons, though with larger mol
ecules. Paraffin wax is solid at body temperature and is inert. It is used for sealing surfaces of preserves to exclude organisms and moisture, but it is slightly permeable to oxygen. It is also used in chewing gums. Vaseline is sometimes used in the kitchen for coating iron utensils to stop them rusting. It should be cleaned away completely before a utensil is used on the stove.
Mowra butter, also known as bassia fat and illipe butter (Tamil: illupai), is a fat extracted from the mohwa or Indian butter tree (Madhuca indica and M. longifolia), which grows wild in the jungles in the dry, hilly regions of Central India. In spring, the flowers, with their long sweet tubes, attract peacocks, bears and other wild creatures, while the villagers sweep the ground clean under the trees and harvest the flowers, which they use to make a wine or dry for food. Later, the greenish-yellow fruits, about the size of an egg, are gathered. The seeds contain 55-65% of a soft yellow oil. In India, it is used locally for cooking and also exported to be made into margarine.
Mustard oil. An important cooking oil in India, where it is a generic term covering sarson oil (from varieties of turnip, Brassica rapa, which are grown for oil seed and not for fat tap-roots), toria (from another variety of turnip), taramira or tara (from *rocket, Eruca sativa) and rai (from Indian mustard, Brassica juncea). In the food trade, all these are described as rapeseed or colza oil, except rai, which is known as mustard oil.
Mustard oil is much used in Indian cooking. It may have a strong mustard flavour (which vanishes on heating), and the oil is not, to my knowledge, ever used raw. Although there is some difference in taste when curries are made with mustard oil rather than other oils, the great value of mustard oil is in making Indian pickles which then never seem to go bad, even when opened. (A home-made aubergine pickle left for three years after opening was still in perfect condition.) Mustard oil is available in Indian shops, but is rather expensive. lt is worth trying.
Mutton fat or lamb fat. This is the least used common fat in Western cooking. It is hard and has a flavour which many find incompatible with other foods. Those who fear fat for health reasons avoid it as it is highly saturated, containing about 50% saturated fatty acids, 45% monosaturated and only 5% polyunsaturated. However, in the Middle East, with its hard people and hard lands, fat-tailed sheep and mutton fat are prized foods. Meat is preserved in mutton fat (*qwwrama) and eggs are fried in it, which gives them a characteristic taste.
Niger oil. The niger plant (Guizotia abyssinica) is a composite which is a native of tropical Africa and especially of Ethiopia. It is grown as an oil seed in many areas, although India is the largest producer. The seeds contain up to 50% oil and are sometimes ground into a chutney. The oil is pale yellow, with a nice, nutty taste. By the time it reaches the shops, it has usually been blended with other oils for cooking.
Nut oils. Oils expressed from nuts such as pecans, filberts, pistachios, brazils and cashews are expensive but are a way of using nuts which are too small or broken to be sold without processing. These oils are used for confectionery or cosmetics. Locally, there are also nut oils of varieties so local that they scarcely get outside their native jungles. The only oils from temperate zone nuts that are in common kitchen use are almond oil and walnut oil.
*Olive oil. The original oil, and the word ‘oil’ even comes from the same root as ‘olive’. The Spanish word for oil, aceite (not to be confused with aceto, the Italian for vinegar), comes from the Arab word, az-zait, meaning fruit of the olive. It contains 15% saturated fatty acids, 75% monounsaturated and 10% polyunsaturated. Olive oil and seed oils are often custom-mixed, on demand, in village shops in Europe.
Palm oil comes from the fruit of the African Oil palm (Elais gutneensis), which is native to West Africa, though cultivated elsewhere in the tropics. In Honduras, it is called dendê oil. Palm-kernel oil is a more delicate white oil expressed from just the kernels rather than from the whole pulp. It has a pleasant flavour and is much used by margarine and candy manufacturers. There are many other palm oils which come from Brazilian species of palm, notably babassu, cohune, licuri, tucum and murumuru palm oils. Anyone who stays in a West African household will meet the special and rather nice oily taste of palm oil (which is characteristic of the food there) the first time there are fried eggs for breakfast. Palm oil is rich in saturated fatty acids – 40% – with 40% monounsaturates and only 10% polyunsaturates.
Paraffin oil. A mineral oil (see above).
Peanut oil or groundnut oil. One of the most important cooking oils and preferred on salads by those who do not like olive oil. It congeals at 5°C (23°F) and can be heated to 218°C (424°F) before it reaches its smoke point and starts to deteriorate. It contains about 20% saturated fatty acids, 50% monounsaturates, and 30% polyunsaturates. The biggest *peanut producers are India and China, but the main exporters are the US, Senegal and the Sudan. Processing facilities tend to be near ports such as Liverpool, Hamburg or Marseilles.
Perilla oil is an oil from the seeds of the perilla (Perilla frutescens), a labiate plant which is native to northern India, China and Japan. An edible oil can be got by crushing the roasted seeds, and this has been used in oriental food from very early times.
Poppy seed oil is expressed from opium *poppy seeds. The first pressing gives a fine oil which can be used as a salad oil, but the reddish oil from a second pressing with heat is inedible and used as a medium by painters. Poppy seed oil – huile blanche – is well known in northern France.
Pork fat is marginally less saturated than that of mutton or beef (saturated fatty acids 28%, monosaturated 50%, polyunsaturated 8%) but cooks use it because they like it. Purified pork fat is *lard.
Rape seed oil. According to some authorities, rape (Brassica napus) is another cultivated variety of the same species as the swede. It can be found growing wild over most of Europe. The green tops are poisonous to cattle, and large quantities of rape seed oil should not be used because of the high erucic acid content. It contains 5% saturated fatty acids, 15% monounsaturated and 15% polyunsaturated. It is used a lot in Indian cooking and may be referred to as colza or mustard oil (see above).
Safflower oil comes from the seed of a kind of thistle (Carthamus tinctorius), which is possibly native to the mountains of Abyssinia and Afghanistan, but has escaped in southern Europe. It is cultivated in Egypt, Iran, India and China as well as in the US. At one time, it was also grown for the yellow dye which can be extracted from the dried flower petals. The oil content of the seeds is 24-36%, and the seeds can be roasted and eaten, but more usually the oil, which is golden yellow, is used for cooking and to adulterate ghee. lt is an oil high in polyunsaturated fatty acids (75%) and low in saturated ones (10%). Pure safflower oil can sometimes be bought in health-food shops; it is a good source of vitamin E.
Salad oils. The salad oil par excellence is *olive oil, if it is light and delicately flavoured, but heavy, fruity olive oils are not liked by most people. If good olive oil is not available, it is best to copy the French and use peanut oil, poppy oil, or other delicate oil to replace it. Strongly flavoured oils, like walnut oil, are favoured in some parts of France, but again it is a matter of taste. Commercial salad oils are usually a mixture, and are adequate but never sensational. Since oil should make up three-quarters of a French dressing, its quality is of the first importance in salads.
Sesame oil. The *sesame plant (Sesamum indicum) is probably native to India, which ranks first in production, but it is also grown over a wide area of the Orient. Sesame oil is much used in South Indian cooking, and its nutty flavour makes it excellent for many purposes if it can be found unmixed with other oils.
Shortening. Originally this was fat which made pastry short or brittle, but it is now a general American term for fat or oil of any sort.
Soya oil. The *soya bean is now one of the world’s most important sources of vegetable oil. Soya is the cheapest vegetable oil in many places. It is nutritionally excellent, but often has a slightly fishy smell. Soya oil is high in polyunsaturated fatty acids – 55% against 10%
saturated and 25% monounsaturated. Most people would probably rate this oil lower than most of the other important ones for flavour.
*Suet is the hard fat from around the kidneys of an ox. It has a very definite flavour which is necessary in suet crust for steak and kidney puddings and for suet pudding. Commercial suet contains quite a lot of flour or starch (15%) which is needed to keep the chopped fat pieces separate.
Sunflower oil. The oil extracted from the seeds of the sunflower (Helianthus annuus) is of ever-growing importance. The seeds contain up to 45% of a pale golden oil which has an excellent taste and very high nutritive and dietary value. The percentage of saturated fatty acid is only 5%, of the neutral monounsaturates 25% and of the polyunsaturates as much as 65%. It is a pity to use sunflower oil for deep frying, but for all other kitchen uses, including making mayonnaise and dressing salads, it is excellent.
Sweet oil may mean a nut oil like almond oil, although oils are not actually sweet. It can also mean oils that are not rancid.
Tallow is any coarse, hard fat. In the past, tallow was used for candles. Occasionally, in old books, you are told to smear something with tallow, or to use tallow for some kitchen purpose.
Triglycerides. Fats and oils are esters of the alcohol glycerol (glycerine) with long-chain fatty acids. A triglyceride molecule is made up of one molecule of glycerol combined with three fatty acid molecules. Triglycerides are the ordinary fats. You may come on the term in diet books relating to the triglycerides in the blood.
Walnut oil. Oil expressed from *walnuts is used in parts of France as a salad oil, although it is expensive. Walnut oil from the Dordogne, but not that from Jura or the Loire, is strong tasting and thus will not be liked by everyone.
Whale oil. I remember being taken down into the bowels of a whaling factory-ship somewhere south of South Georgia, and shown a clear, water-white oil that came out of a tap. It was totally odourless, surprisingly so in relation to the ghastly stink on deck. The clear oil was *whale oil destined for margarine. Despite the work of the International Whaling Commission, who were supposed to husband the world’s whales, the animals are rapidly becoming scarce, and whaling from most civilized countries has stopped. At present whale oil is likely to be found in margarine only in the Soviet Union and Japan.