Tips on Oils!

What's up everybody!, I'm back with a new post that should probably interest you since it's a "not so documented" topic. Today we'll talk about the different types of oils and the situations most likely to be used for.

Let's get something clear first ALL OILS ARE FAT, but not all of them are created equally; there's types of fat that are good for you (monosaturated, super unsaturated or polyunsaturated) and others that you should avoid (trans fats, partially hydrogenated or with unsaturated fats). Yes, it's a little bit confusing, but after you read this you'll be able to spot them easily.

Whenever you're cooking with oil you have to consider some safety points, like if for whatever reason it catches fire you NEVER EVER try to put the fire out with water, you have to use baking soda or a good ol' fire extinguisher. If you try water it will splash and probably catch everything else on fire. If you notice an oil that starts to bubble, remove it inmediately from the heat source since it's already too hot and could probably catch fire.

On the same note, that's why we need to understand something related to this which is called the oil's "smoking point", which means the temperatures where oils begin to smoke or burn out. Why is this important?, because there are some oils that can handle a lot of heat (i.e. regular vegetable oils) and some that burn easier and can change negatively the flavor of your dishes (i.e. olive oil). This is the reason why you will never see something deep fried in butter (also it costs a lot more of course and burned things won't taste very good either).

I won't spend a lot of time explaining about temperatures and their physical properties, since a lot of people don't have thermometers anyway, so I'll dedicate more time to note which are the "good" oils and which ones you should avoid.

There are 2 main groups of oils: Refined and Unrefined:

Refined Oils (Description/Fat Type/Smoke Point):

Almond: Nut oils are best used in cold dishes; heat destroys their delicate flavor. 495°F

Avocado: This rather unusual light, slightly nutty tasting oil is considered primarily to be a novelty. To add a different twist to salad dressings, try using avocado oil in place of the oil you would normally use. This oil is often made from damaged and cosmetically inferior avocados. It is low in saturated fatty acids and high in polyunsaturates. 520°F

Butter, whole or clarified: This the preferred fat for baking as it adds the most flavour. It's not idea for frying since it will burn at a lower temperature than most oils, but can be used for sauteing. Try adding butter to oil for the flavor benefit of butter and the higher temperature range of oil. 350°F

Canola (A US marketing name for rapeseed oil): A light, golden-colored oil, similar to safflower oil. Low in saturated fat. Extracted from the seeds of a plant in the turnip family (the same plant as the vegetable broccoli rabe). Used in salads and cooking, mostly in the Mediterranean region and India; also used in margarine and blended vegetable oils. It has a mild flavor and aroma. It is most commonly available in a refined form. Its mild flavor and relatively high smoke point make refined canola oil a good all-purpose oil. Of all the oils, it has the least amount of saturated fat and is one of the least expensive. Monosaturated. 400°F

Corn oil : Made from the germ of the corn kernel. Corn oil is almost tasteless and is excellent for cooking because it can withstand high temperatures without smoking. It is high in polyunsaturated fat and is used to make margarine, salad dressings and mayonnaise. Polysaturated. 450° F

Grape Seed: This light, medium-yellow, aromatic oil is a by-product of wine making. It is used in salads and some cooking and in the manufacture of margarine. 400°F

Lard: Baking. 361-401°F

Olive: A monosaturated oil extracted from tree-ripened olives. Olive oils range from light amber to green in color and bland to extremely strong in flavor. Olive oil is graded according to its degree of acidity and the process used to extract the oil. Monosaturated. Unrefined 320°F; Extra Virgin 406°F; Virgin** 420°F;  Extra Light* 468°F

Peanut: Made from pressed, steam-cooked peanuts. Peanut oil has a bland flavor and is good for cooking because it doesn't absorb or transfer flavors.. Its smoking point is slightly lower than corn or safflower oil. Monosaturated. 450°F

Safflower - High Oleic: A clear, almost flavorless oil made from the seeds of safflowers. Safflower oil is a favorite for salads because it doesn't solidify when chilled. Sunflower oil is pale yellow and has a bland flavor. It is a good all-purpose oil low in saturated fat and high in polyunsaturated fat. Monosaturated. 450°F

Safflower - Regular: A clear, almost flavorless oil made from the seeds of safflowers. Safflower oil is a favorite for salads because it doesn't solidify when chilled. Sunflower oil is pale yellow and has a bland flavor. It is a good all-purpose oil. Polysaturated. 450°F

Sesame: Made from pressed sesame seeds. Sesame oil comes in two varieties: light (made with untoasted sesames) and dark (made with toasted sesames). Light sesame oil has a nutty flavor and is especially good for frying. Dark sesame oil (Asian) has a stronger flavor and should only be used in small quantities for flavoring foods -- not cooking. Both varieties are high in polyunsaturated fat. Polysaturated. 410°F

Shortening - vegetable: Baking, frying. 356-370°F

Soybean: Highly refined soy oil is reasonably priced, very mild and versatile, accounting for over 80% of all oil used in commercial food production in the U.S. Almost any product that lists vegetable oil as an ingredient probably contains refined soy oil. This is a good all-purpose oil that is also used in cakes and pastries        . 450°F

Sunflower - High Oleic: Made from sunflower seeds. Sunflower oil is pale yellow and has a bland flavor. It’s a very good all-purpose oil. Monosaturated. 450°F

Sunflower - Regular: A light, odorless and nearly flavorless oil pressed from sunflower seeds. Pale yellow and versatile. Polysaturated. 450°F

Vegetable Oil: Made by blending several different refined oils. Designed to have a mild flavor and a high smoke point.             

Unrefined Oils (Description/Fat Type/Smoke Point):

Corn: One of the most common oils. Polysaturated. 320°F or less for all

Coconut Oil: A heavy, nearly colorless oil extracted from fresh coconuts. Used primarily in blended oils and shortenings. Used primarily in prepared, processed, packaged foods.                            

Grape Seed: This light, medium-yellow, aromatic oil is a by-product of wine making. It is used in salads and some cooking and in the manufacture of margarine.              

Nut (walnut, hazelnut): This fragrant full-flavored oil is pressed from hazelnuts and takes on the flavor of roasted nuts. The nuts are often toasted for a browner color and better flavor. The nuts are never blanched. Used in salad dressings, sauces, baked goods, and for sautéing. Polysaturated.

Olive: Sauteing, stir-frying. A monosaturated oil extracted from tree-ripened olives. Olive oils range from light amber to green in color and bland to extremely strong in flavor. Olive oil is graded according to its degree of acidity and the process used to extract the oil. Oil labeled "virgin" is cold pressed, a process using no heat or chemicals and contains low levels of acidity. Oil labeled "pure" uses heat and chemicals to process olive residue from subsequent pressings. Oil varies in weight and may be pale-yellow to deep-green depending on fruit used and processing. Cold-pressed olive oil, is superior in flavor to refined. Oil from the first pressing, called "virgin" olive oil is the most flavorful. Also classified according to acidity: extra virgin, superfine, fine, virgin, and pure, in ascending degree of acidity. "Pure" olive oil, and that labeled just "olive oil" may be a combination of cold-pressed and refined oil; suitable for cooking. Monosaturated.             

Peanut: Made from pressed, steam-cooked peanuts. Peanut oil has a bland flavor and is good for cooking because it doesn't absorb or transfer flavors.. Its smoking point is slightly lower than corn or safflower oil. Monosaturated.   

Pumpkin Seed:

Safflower - High Oleic: Sunflower oil is an excellent all-purpose oil; however, some people find its flavor too strong for baked goods and salads. It stores well and may be used instead of sesame or corn oil. This oil has a high resistance to rancidity. Monosaturated.           

Safflower – Regular: Polysaturated         

Sesame: There are two types of sesame oil. The oil that is made from roasted sesame seeds has a strong, distinctive flavor. It is called dark sesame or toasted sesame oil and has an intensely rich, smoky, sesame aroma; nutty taste; dark, brown color; thick consistency; and cloudy appearance. It is used a great deal in Chinese and Indian cooking. Just a few drops of this oil can add an outrageously delicious flavor that enhances many foods. Dark sesame oil is ideal for stir-fries, baking, sauces, and spreads. Polysaturated.

Soybean: Soybeans contain oil that is inefficient to extract in a natural manner; therefore, unrefined expeller-pressed soy oil is rather expensive. Unrefined soy oil has a strong, distinctive flavor and aroma -- some like it, some don't. It has a dark yellow color with a faint green tint. Unrefined soy oil is more susceptible to oxidation and rancidity than sesame, olive, or corn oil. Polysaturated.             

Sunflower - High Oleic: Made from sunflower seeds. Sunflower oil is pale yellow and has a bland flavor. It is a good all-purpose oil. Polysaturated.             

Sunflower - Regular:

Vegetable (soybean): An inexpensive and all-purpose blend of oils made from plant sources such as vegetables, nuts and seeds. Most vegetable oils are made from soybeans. Polysaturated.

 *Reference: http://missvickie.com/howto/spices/oils.html

Unrefined oils are not good for high temperatures, so if you plan to deep fry something, just keep an eye on the temperature and don't let it burn!; but these oils are great for dressings.

Tip: if you use a lot of oil to fry, you can re-use it again!, you just have to strain it to take out most of the frying particles left, seal tightly and then store in a refrigerator. You can use oil 2 times if you keep it from burning up (if it's all burned up the flavors will be awful).

I’ve got at home a regular vegetable, avocado, extra virgin olive and grape seed oils, with these they give me the flexibility to cook different dishes (and butter) trying to highlight flavors and to improve recipes. Also, always avoid margarine since it’s only chemicals and mostly bad for you.

Remember: never throw oil out the drain, every drop of oil you throw out, it can contaminate 1 cubic meter of fresh water (that's 1,000 liters to you mathematically challenged lol). Try to recicle it!!!!

Hope this is as helpful and educational as I think it is!, if not, just let me know!!!!

Tips on sugar!

Hi all, sorry for the delay on this blog but I'm back with more cooking basics!

One of the main mistakes I always find in recipes are the measurements that they give out. Most of us amateurs, when we write down a recipe, we put measurements only as a function of volume (i.e. cups, tablespoons, etc) when we should also write down the weight (i.e. grams, ounces, etc), hence the recommendation to buy a small scale.

This is specially important for dry ingredients and the most common error I find is for granulated ingredients like sugar and types of salt, but let's concentrate on sugar for this time around. There are a few types of sugars and most of them vary a lot in their granularity and sweetness level. The whiter and finer the sugar, the sweeter it is; you can substitute sugars in some cases, like replace white refined sugar for brown sugar or honey and I would highly recommend it when using it on sauces (not when doing a recipe for baking or pastries though), since it's easier to control the sweetness when small amounts do not impact the recipe more than you wanted it to.

*A very big disclaimer DO NOT FEED HONEY TO BABIES 1 YR AND YOUNGER, it may cause infant botulism (yes, the same toxin as in botox) that results in paralysis.

If you want to know more about how to substitute sugars, please reference to this website:

http://www.foodsubs.com/Sweeten.html

It may not have it by weight, but it gives you an idea on how to substitute any type of sugar.

So go through your family recipes and try to correct this, you'll notice the difference and since manufacturers will always find new sweet alternatives, it  will be easier to substitute when you have the correct measurements and help on reducing costs (refined cane sugar is more expensive).

And most important of all, you also should always consider using salt (just a small pinch) to heighten the sugar flavor.

Next time I'll write about the different types of oils and how they affect your cooking!

Kitchen Basics

Ok, let's get the disclaimer out of the way first: I'm not a professional chef, but I do know how to cook and have experience working at a restaurant. I don't consider myself an expert but if there's something I need to learn, I do research and end up testing/experimenting with new recipes, ingredients and utensils.

All right, let's get this blog rolling!

Some of the most common questions I always get (or hear) about cooking are about the basics of cooking, but instead about handing out an enormous list of "things" basic to cooking, I'll rather give you tips and recommendations that everybody should ever know. I'll hand out pointers and then detail them on this and future posts:

- Don't be afraid of the kitchen: sure, it sounds cliché but the reality is that most people that never cook is because of a number of things related to being afraid, things like: intimidated by the kitchen, terrified by the idea of failure, lack of practice, not knowing your ingredients or just laziness to follow a recipe.

So don't be afraid, get to know your kitchen and look for quick and easy recipes and soldier on, nobody becomes a good/great cook just by cooking once a month. If you don't know what a term is, grab a dictionary or look online. There are millions of places to look for info or you can ask me and I'll try to give you a hand.

- Learn to use your equipment correctly: i.e. one of the most underused kitchen appliances/equipment is the oven, but at the same time is one of the best, you can do great dishes with it.

My favorite kitchen appliances are:

• Blender
• Food processor
• Mixer
• Oven/mini-oven
• Pressure cooker
• Slow cooker
• Rice cooker (for my japanese recipes of course)
• Vacuum saver, a very underrated piece of equipment, will save you lots of money and help keep/enhance flavors.

I don't use the microwave oven often, but if you like it there are certainly a lot of ways to use it effectively.

Utensils:

• Good set of knives
• Good set of pans/pots, preferably made of steel but it's always good to have at least one non-stick, 1-2 baking pans too
• Pair of tongs (not thongs!! haha)
• Cutting board
• Measuring equipment: cups, spoons, scale
• Scissors
• Colander
• Grater
• Thermometer

These utensils are not the only ones that we have, but they're the ones that I use the most. The thermometer would be the most underrated here, it's one of the most useful tools when cooking, specially when you want to check when a kind of meat is done well (not to be confused with well done).

- Learn to use your seasonings: sometimes using an additional ingredient (spice, herb, chile, fruit, vegetable) will make a recipe a thousand times better than the original one, but always remaining careful of not over-seasoning because that can ruin any dish.

Herbs and spices are the most versatile, the difference between a herb and a spice is mostly where it comes from on a plant. Herbs are used fresh or dried and come from the leafy part of a plant (i.e. oregano, bay leaves, basil); spices come from seeds, fruits, barks, roots, etc (i.e. cumin, pepper, ginger) and most of the times they come in dried form.

Also you have to consider your mineral/chemical seasonings like: salt, stock cubes, MSG, etc. Don't be afraid to use some chemicals once in a while, they can enhance flavors and as long as you don't use them excessively, they can't be hazardous to your health.

My favorite seasonings are:

• Salt, rock salt is the best, I only use the finely ground for baking
• Pepper
• Paprika
• Chile: chipotle, habanero, serrano, jalapeño are the most common
• Cinammon
• Vanilla
• Ginger
• Mustard seeds
• Garlic
• Onion

I use a lot of them to season dishes and try to come up with different mixes and experiment, but to do that try to taste them independently before doing any combinations.

- Learn cooking techniques: there are a lot of cooking techniques out there and, as technology advances new ones come along. As an Iron Chef once said (Michael Symon): "If you learn 1 recipe you can cook a great dish, but if you learn a good technique you can do hundreds of great dishes".

I won't get into too much detail here because it's really hard to master them all, but over time I will be explaining some of them so that you can perfect your cooking skills.

To name a few:

• Braising
• Boiling
• Frying
• Sautéeing
• Roasting

All of them have their pros & cons but also all of them can be used to produce great dishes. You don't have to learn the really fancy ones (those that require special attention or equipment), since I think that when you cook at home being practical matters most.

On later posts I will talk about how to use all of these, along with food handling and sanitation, but I think that at least we covered a good portion of the basics. So, if you're interested in going into more detail on any of these, just give me a shout (comment), or if you have an additional question let me know!

As always, please click on my sponsors ads (google ads), this will help me a lot... Thanks and always a pleasure!!!

Well, it's been decided

I'll write about cooking, photography, technology, sports, movies and travel.

Hope you guys enjoy and as always will be open to suggestions!

Saludos!

PS: Always remember to click on the sponsored ads!!!!

Vote for daily topics!!!

I guess it should be better if I dedicate a day of the week for each topic instead of just randomly posting. But this doesn't mean that I won't post out of topic things on any single day, that also depends on the "inspiration" I can come across on that specific day.

So, this is what I had in mind and it's open for suggestions:

Monday: Photography
Tuesday: Books
Wednesday: Travel
Thursday: Food
Friday: Movies
Saturday: Sports

This way will help me keep track of the most visited topics per day, since I can only track the number of clicks on a daily basis.

Obviously this is just for starters and subject to change if warranted, this means that if a topic is too popular maybe I should dedicate more than one day for it. Or if there's one that for some reason people don't like, then I'll change it for another one.

Please give me your opinion on this and remember to click on the sponsors links!!!!

First Real Post!

Why should I write a blog when there's an overload of formats to communicate with everybody about the things that I like?, well for starters I guess that this e-medium is more personal and certainly less restrictive, than let's say Facebook or Twitter.

I've been internally debating for almost 5 years about doing a blog and finally decided to build one and, now the blog formats (aesthetics) are not as crappy as they were back then. Now they're easier to do and the technology has advanced enough so that you don't necessarily need a computer to keep it fresh and, updated.

The other big decision that I had to make was to choose what to talk about, if I was going for a more business pro approach and talk about work or more about personal stuff ; and even though work is very interesting and fun, if I talked about me and the things that I personally like, I could reach a larger audience. So I've decided to blog about arts (cooking, photography, travel, books, et al) and sports.

Part of the reason for doing this is my curiosity about experimenting with social media and to be honest, trying to find out if it's worthwhile the time and effort to put into one to make a profit out of it. I'm starting to get into online businesses and this will certainly be a way for me to test it's feasibilities.

So without further a do, if you enjoy this blog I invite you to help improve it and drop a comment or two about it and, click on the sponsors links (ads) whenever you visit, this will help the blog and certainly my stats!!!

Thank you for your interest and hope you can keep coming back!

PS: I've got to thank my aunt Ana about this, she's the one that indirectly convinced me about it!

Welcome!

Hello everyone!

This is my first attempt to do a blog to share and discuss about things that I like.

I've seen many people do this so I might as well give it a try!

Saludos,
Ramiro