Food Product Design: World Fare - January 2001 - Cooking Oils

January 2001

By:Susheela Uhl
Contributing Editor

Throughout the globe, a variety of plant- and animal-based oils cook, brown and add flavor to foods. Corn, canola or soybean oils produce a neutral flavor, while sesame, palm, annatto and coconut oils lend specific flavors and colors to foods.

Latin American and Caribbean residents use manteca de puerco (lard), tocino (salt-cured pork), olive oil, palm oil and annatto oil. Crude palm oil (dende), an orange-gold, nutty oil, forms the basis for stews and sauces in Bahia, Brazil. Annatto oil (aceite de annatto), extracted from tiny red seeds called achiote or bijol, adds a reddish-brown color and unique flavor to many foods.

Indian ghee, or clarified cow’s milk butter, is used as cooking oil for vegetarian foods. With a white to deep-yellow color and grainy texture, it adds a fragrant aroma to biryanis, sweets and puddings. Coconut oil adds a rich, slightly sweet and smoky flavor to many South Indian dishes, and mustard seed oil gives a sweet onion-like flavor to chutneys and pickles in the North.

East Asians deep- and stir-fry vegetables, meats and noodles with lard, peanut, soybean and canola oils. Dark, golden-brown roasted-sesame oil adds flavor to steamed and braised dishes, while instant dried noodles are often fried in palm oil. Southeast Asians also use palm and palm kernel oils. Palm oil, bleached or crude, has different properties from palm kernel oil, and is used for deep frying and tumising sauces.

Mediterranean inhabitants use olive, rendered fat from sheep, cottonseed, grapeseed, canola, almond and other vegetable and nut oils for frying, sautéing and steaming foods. Olive oil’s properties depend on the olive variety and type of extraction or pressing. Traditional European choices include butter from goat or cow’s milk, goose fat, sunflower seed oil, pumpkin seed oil and rendered beef fat.

Common Middle Eastern cooking oils include olive, butter, corn, sesame, alya (rendered fat from sheep or lamb’s tail) and samna (clarified butter). Schmaltz, an onion-flavored rendered goose or chicken fat, is popular in Israel. In Africa, smen, alya, olive, cottonseed, groundnut, sesame, sunflower and corn oils are commonly used. Palm oil, called epo by Nigerian Yorubas, and shea butter derived from a chestnut-like fruit, are popular in West African cooking.

Susheela Uhl, president of Horizons Inc., a Mamaroneck, NY-based food-consulting firm, creates culinary concepts and develops ethnic and fusion products. She can be reached via e-mail at SUhl246@aol.com or by visiting www.SusheelaConsulting.com.

3400 Dundee Rd. Suite #100
Northbrook, IL 60062
Phone: 847-559-0385
Fax: 847-559-0389
E-Mail: info@foodproductdesign.com
Website: www.foodproductdesign.com