Bad olive oil

[trof]

I see recipes (many times from Ina Garten) that call for "good" olive oil, or "good" butter, or "good" soy sauce.

Is there such a thing as "bad" in these categories?
I guess 'rancid' would qualify, but 'really'?

[Festivito]

1. Yes, yes and yes as I understand.

Virgin olive oil can be faked, ... with a little dirt I hear.
Recipes oft call for unsalted butter because you can tell if is spoiling. Salting hides the sour taste for a bit past its prime.
Soy sauce can also be overly salted, badly cooked, and I don't know what else.

[Warpy]

2. Oh, you bet there is

"Virgin" or "Extra Virgin" refers to the first pressing of the olives, done efficiently by rollers in huge plants instead of by Farmer Giuseppe with his quaint olive press in the back yard. Many varieties are mixed and they're grown and harvested in many different locations. Any greenish olive oil from a reputable dealer will be good. "Cold pressed" is a meaningless term since the definition of "cold" varies widely by factory. The fanciness of the bottle has little to do with the quality of the contents, only with the height of the price.

Bed olive oil is the yellow, tasteless stuff that's extracted from the nearly dry olives after the "virgin" pressing. Since there is so little oil remaining, it's done by a chemical process. I suppose if you loathe the taste of olive oil but have been prescribed it for one reason or another, this might be acceptable. However, other people will want to give it a miss.

Likewise, butter can vary widely by manufacturer, depending how much salt they put in the salted butter. I generally go for the unsalted butter, Challenge or Tillamook in this part of the country, and freeze it until I need it. Salt is used to prevent rancidity and if you're not going to use it within a week or so, unsalted butter should be frozen.

Soy sauce also varies widely. I dislike a lot of Chinese soy sauces because they tend to be very salty. Kikkoman is a decent soy sauce that adds flavor without overpowering the food with salt. Eden makes a very good wheat free tamari sauce that, while salty, has a robust flavor so you can use a bit less.

The best bet with everything but olive oil is to find something you like and stick with it. With olive oil, just stick to the major brands even if the bottles aren't pretty, and stay away from the yellow stuff.

[rusty quoin]

5. Thanks for the butter info.

I always buy unsalted, and never thought about freezing it. You can pull it from the freezer and immediately use it in a fry pan. I buy unsalted because most recipes call for it, and you can control the amount.
I should have put two and two together, like I buy boars head ham and poultry at the deli...less chemicals..the ham last longer because of salt...other brands poultry last as long as ham. I'm never to old to learn...though I kind of feel kinda like a dope. I'll get over it...thanks again.

[Warpy]

12. Some health food stores now have nitrite free roast beef, chicken and turkey

They just have to sell it quickly and once it's home, it really does need to be used up in just a few days. They still use table salt, but the the nitrites are the chemicals that bite you twice.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

20. Although cream is expensive...butter is just too easy to make...

heavy cream in food processor plus salt. boom. drain for a while and
put in a crock.

[SheilaT]

18. Unsalted butter kept in the fridge does not go rancid very fast.

In fact, I've never had it go rancid on me, ever. It typically takes me about a month to go through a pound of butter. Sometimes longer. I tend to keep the current stick on the counter top, because I want it soft enough to spread anytime I get a hankering for toast or whatever. If I'm going out of town I'll stick it back in the fridge.

So in my experience you have a whole lot longer than a week to use up butter.

Keep in mind that people have been using these things for centuries without access to refrigeration.

Olive oil eventually goes rancid. So, apparently does Crisco. But both take at least six months. Maybe longer. And I'm keeping them in the cupboard, not in the fridge.

[Warpy]

19. It can take me a month to go through a quarter pound

You bet it gets frozen in my house.

Without refrigeration, butter that wasn't to be used that day was salted to prevent rancidity.

I have never needed to refrigerate olive oil, good thing because it can solidify in there. I do refrigerate safflower and other oils.

[SheilaT]

26. I wish I could recall the longest it's taken me in recent years

to go through a pound of butter, but it's probably been around than two months. And even then, there's never been any hint of going off.

If your butter usage is that low, keep the portion you're using in the fridge, and while it certainly can't hurt to freeze, I honestly think it's not necessary.

As I said, my unsalted butter stays on the countertop of the kitchen, and I rarely use up a quarter pound stick in less than two weeks.

A large bottle of olive oil lasts months. My current one is probably three or four months from having been opened. And it's just fine. I used some of it earlier today to sautee some onions.

When I've had olive oil go bad it was on the scale of a year or more. The time the Crisco went bad was a can that had been sitting in the cupboard untouched for at least two years. I decided to make chocolate chip cookies after and unconscionably long time. The Crisco smelled a bit off but I used it anyway. Dumb. The cookies were inedible. But again, it had been untouched for a very long time.

Some things don't go bad as quickly as people think they do.

[Major Nikon]

3. That's not really what they mean

I keep two different kinds of olive oil on hand.

The first is Extra Virgin Olive Oil (EVOO). When they say "good" olive oil that's what they mean. There's also certainly different qualities available within the realm of EVOO. More expensive EVOO tends to be better quality. This type of olive oil is generally used fresh, such as with salad dressing, although there are some applications where it's used for cooking. So some people may have EVOO they use for cooking and "good" EVOO they use for salad dressings and other fresh applications where a "good" EVOO is going to make a difference.

The second type of olive oil I keep on hand is Light Olive oil. This is the type I use for sauteing, other high temperature applications, and pretty much everything else that calls for vegetable oil.

[rusty quoin]

6. I looked up smoking temps for oils.

I think ...olive oil was at a lower end but I don't know if extra virgin was at a higher temp...I believe it's all about impunities..extra virgin sounds like it should be higher.

I have avocado oil for seasoning pans, because it was at the top of the list.

[Major Nikon]

8. Extra light olive oil has a pretty high smoke point

It's high enough for my purposes and it's relatively cheap compared to some other oils with high smoke points.

Extra light olive oil is refined vs extra virgin which is unrefined. So the impurities definitely have much to do with it.

For seasoning pans, flaxseed oil (food grade linseed oil), is the best one to use. This is a great article on the subject.
http://sherylcanter.com/wordpress/2010/01/a-science-based-technique-for-seasoning-cast-iron/

[rusty quoin]

9. Thanks Major.

You have become my go to guy for such advice. What does the name mean?

[rusty quoin]

10. I watched it, but it would not work for me.

I have de Buyer carbon steel pans. I could go through the process she describes, but once I use an acid like tomatoes, the oil surface is gone. I use tomatoes a lot.

I will though look into flaxseed oil. I try to cook fast, and as to readying my pans for the next cook, it's done on the cooktop, because tomatoes could ruin it the next day.

My seasoning process can last a good amount of time until I cook with tomatoes.

[Major Nikon]

11. For all my pans I wash them immediately when cooking tomatoes or anything acidic

I think you'll find seasoning with flaxseed oil lasts longer than anything else you'll find. I was skeptical at first, but once I tried it I never wanted to use anything else.

For best results remove all the old seasoning first, and go through the whole process for about 6 coats.

[rusty quoin]

23. Okay. Maybe I'll try six times to see if it resists acidic foods.

I'll let you know the results.

[japple]

4. I have always laughed about this. Why in hell would anyone use

bad olive oil. I understand what the recipe creators are trying to say, but there really should be some other sort of way to qualify these ingredients.

[Major Nikon]

7. It's more like shades of grey rather than black or white

Truly good olive oil is expensive, so some people might want to save that for salad dressing while using cheaper stuff for other purposes.

[Galileo126]

13. Exactly

I keep the cheaper stuff around for general sauteing, and the expensive stuff when you want to taste it - like for dressings. I never put EVOO under heat - it can destroy the subtleties of the flavor.

[Phentex]

14. That's really it but...

it's still funny to hear Ina say "good" olive oil. She also says that about other things: good quality butter, etc.

[Galileo126]

15. For Ina, "good" is no problem

She buys her ingredients at the most expensive stores/shops. She doesn't think about spending $30/lb for chicken breasts. You'll notice that in the camera shots of her in a market, they rarely show the prices. But sometimes they slip up. I was appalled. Life in the Hamptons, I guess...

[Phentex]

16. Yeah...

Just have your butcher cut a three pound portion of beef tenderloin for this delicious lunch with your neighbors...



I'm not bitter.

[Major Nikon]

17. Some foodies that have been around a while probably remember a show called "The Frugal Chef"

Jeff Smith constantly stressed that by "frugal" he didn't mean cheap. He sometimes used expensive ingredients, however his goal was to get the most culinary bang for the buck, so when he did use pricey ingredients he explained why he was doing so.

I like expensive olive oil and expensive butter, but for my tastes I almost always go with cheaper ones because while the more expensive ones do make a difference, the question you have to ask yourself is that extra expense really worth it? For some that have unlimited resources for food, the answer is always yes, but the rest of us have to make up our own minds on that. I prefer to seek out ingredients that give you the most culinary bang for the buck just like the late, great Jeff Smith stressed.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

21. Not that it affected his food expertise - but didn't he get caught

in some lewd sex scandal of some sort ?

[Major Nikon]

25. I don't know if you can say he got caught

There was some kind of legal action and the result of which ended his show. I look at it as I do Michael Jackson and Lewis Carroll. Regardless of what they did or didn't do, they are now dead so it's not as if they are still a threat to anyone.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

22. Perhaps hype but I was taught that the true benefits of olive

oil can only be derived from olive oil that is consumed within 30 days of production. Ergo - most all Italian OO's are out. California, Texas in. And, it is said, if you drink a tablespoon every day - you won't have bone and joint issues. It lacks the deep, intense flavor of the Italian or Spanish oil - much lighter and fresher though.

[rusty quoin]

24. Lots of responses without not one recommendation. Here's one K&R.

[shanti]

27. good vs bad olive oil

i live in nor cal, which is home to many excellent olive groves. have read way too many stories about "bad" olive oil, which is often the popular brands (star, etc.). they usually come from italy/europe, and are a mixture of different types, some of them not even 100% olive oil. soooo, the best type to buy is LOCAL, farm produced, 100% EVOO. all of the local grocerys sell california EVOO, so it's not hard to find here. it's even available locally at our farmer's markets, and you get to taste it first. a bit pricier, but much better and you know what's actually in it!

my 2 cents...