Changing your oil/fat to change the flavor profile

[nakji]

I keep several oils and fats on hand for cooking, which amuses my non-cook friends.

( - Sample conversation:

Friend:"Why do you have three different 1l bottles of oil?"

Me: "The oils are different."

Friend: "...?")

Since I tend to cook seasonally, we get a glut of the same thing in my kitchen for a while. Right now it's spinach and pea shoots. To keep things seeming like there's more of a variety, I use different oils to help give the same ingredient a different spin. For example, the spinach with olive oil and a bit of garlic seems Italian. But with a bit of sesame oil, it's Korean. A bit of clarified butter, and it's leaning toward India. Or when I get cucumbers, a bit of vinegar and sesame oil, and we're in Korea again. But sunflower oil and vinegar puts me in Vietnam.

What other oils or fats help give the main ingredient the feel of a different cuisine?

[Chris Amirault]

I definitely feel that using chicken fat with vegetables in a stir fry is Chinese, though I'm not sure why that is. I imagine that there are lots of cuisines that use animal fat for vegetable sautéing, for example.

Greens with lard or bacon fat? To me, that speaks of the US south.

[nakji]

Ah, chicken fat. I never have enough of that laying around, but when I do, it goes right on my greens.

How about duck fat? I know duck fat and potatoes, but what else....?

[Chris Amirault]

Les gras de canard, tres Francais.....

[Richard Kilgore]

Duck fat even for an omelette.

[Darienne]

Using coconut oil makes food taste different also. And then there's lard.

[David A. Goldfarb]

For roasted root vegetables, I like to saute a bit in duck fat in a cast iron pan and then put the pan in oven to roast.

Chicken fat for the best caramelized onions.

I keep a deep fry pot in the fridge filled with beef fat (maybe with some bacon drippings thrown in) for French fries and other deep fried things.

For stir fry I usually use peanut oil.

[nakji]

I use peanut oil for deep-frying, too. Anytime I make anything wok-based, basically. Except if I'm stir-frying greens; then they get sesame oil.

[rarerollingobject]

I am constantly planning meals around the various fats in my fridge and quite often use poultry fat (duck, chicken, goose) for stir frying Asian greens. Anything I saute and want to get a nice golden fond on (prawn fritters, dumplings) I'd also use poultry fat for.

I also use camellia oil on white cooked Chinese dishes and cold Japanese salads; I love the cool, clean taste and it just seems right.

Strangely, despite considering it the king of fats, I find fewer uses for pork fat..I occasionally melt some down and drizzle it over stir fries or pan fried noodle dishes before serving, like you might finish pasta with olive oil.

I've eaten in cheap, great restaurants in HK where they serve liquid pork fat in squeeze bottles on the table, purely for squirting onto your white rice, which, with a little soy sauce, is quite the taste sensation..

[nakji]

Yeah, I never have pork fat on hand. I eat it up too quickly. Fuschia Dunlop strongly recommends lard for her recipes, but I never seem to have the time to render my own, more's the pity.

[roosterchef21]

Just as an aside, when I was an apprentice, my first chef wanted to use sesame oil for deep frying!?!?!

[David A. Goldfarb]

Sometimes I'll use bacon as the fat for things like sauteed greens or vegetables or for pasta dishes--just diced bacon, rendered and left in the dish for another texture. I've used rendered bacon fat in fruit pie crusts, like cherry or apple, and it is really good.

[rarerollingobject]

Just as an aside, when I was an apprentice, my first chef wanted to use sesame oil for deep frying!?!?!

Yeah, that'd be pretty overwhelming. Though not completely unheard of..there are some old school tempura places in Tokyo and Kyoto that deep fry purely in sesame oil. The end result is dark, funky, and strong but not unpleasant.

[Peter the eater]

What other oils or fats help give the main ingredient the feel of a different cuisine?

I received a tiny six-pack of nutty oils a while back and I haven't really experimented with them. Some of them taste very strong when taken a drop at a time from the bottle. I'm sure they would have a major effect on the end result.

I associate different lipids with different times/regions/cuisines. For example, olive oil = Mediterranean, duck fat/butter = French, sesame oil = East Asia, ghee = India/Middle East, Mazola = my childhood. And don't forget canola = low acid Canadian oil.

<edited for clarity>

Edited April 18, 2010 by Peter the eater (log)

[Beebs]

I've lately been sauteeing Asian greens (gai lan and choy sum mostly) with olive oil & garlic, and lemon juice & more EVOO drizzled on top at the end. Asian greens are cheap and plentiful here, and it's nice to have some different ways cooking them. Bacon fat + gai lan is next!

[Jaymes]

In some Polish restaurants, when you first arrive, they put a basket of various Polish breads on the table, along with two small pots. One is clearly and obviously butter.

As for the second, the first time I saw one, I had no idea. I inspected it very closely and was puzzled to see that it looked like nothing more than a small pot of congealed sausage grease.

Which turned out to be exactly what it was.

I don't recall the exact Polish name, but it was just sausage grease, congealed, with a few bits of sausage in it. The idea was that you smear it onto your bread, just like you would butter.

At first, I was somewhat repulsed.

But it turned out to be pretty darn tasty. And, after all, fat is fat is fat. I certainly have no such repulsion about butter. So, once I got over my initial surprise and disdain, I really enjoyed it.

[Lora]

After deep-frying in fresh oil, I like the strained leftover oil for cooking vegetables. It's got a really nice nutty aroma. (The crispy greasy strained-out bits go right on a slice of bread and into my mouth.)

[Chris Amirault]

Not much pork back fat used in the Middle East. Too bad: the lamb burger I had last night (80% lamb, 20% pork fat) was astonishingly good -- and ecumenical.