Rapidly becoming the darling of top chefs, rapeseed oil is pushing its way into the public's culinary conscious as the 'British olive oil' - but why?
Originally grown as a lubricant for steam engines, fields of rapeseed has been part of the British countryside for generations. Today however new culinary strains have been developed and the consequent meadows of gold have become a ubiquitous part of the British countryside, and while we may take the acres of golden flowers for granted, or even curse their hayfever inducing pollen, they are proving a considerable draw for visitors to the UK - indeed, Japanese tourists are travelling here on specially arranged holidays to see it in bloom!
Rapeseed oil has considerable health benefits; it contains half the saturated fat of olive oil (7% compared to 14% in oliver oil or 51% in butter) and is high in omega-3 and omega-6. It is also high in unsaturated fats, which helps reduce cholesterol levels. Knowing this it's no surprise that it's been picked up by the healthy brigade, but why are our top chefs dumping the tasty glories of olive oil in it's favour? I brought a bottle of Cheshire's own Flower of Gold rapeseed oil into my own kitchen and used it to replace my usual light olive oil in everything I cooked for a week - and it's actually not hard to answer that question now!
The oil has a high flashpoint, which means it can be used for frying or high temperature roasting where olive oil can't. The gorgeous golden colour of rapeseed oil also transfers itself to the food - making for gloriously golden roasties and sauté potatoes. I'm advised that it makes an excellent mayonaise, though I haven't tried this! I did make up a salad dressing, with some red wine vinegar and mustard and honey, and actually think it doesn't work here, as it's too heavy. It doesn't work all on its own either, in my opinion, drizzled on tomatoes or goats cheese - I'm afraid nothing will replace my love of extra virgin olive oil for that!
The taste is mildly nutty and smooth, and doesn't leave any strong essence of itself on other foods when cooking with it, but it doesn't really work for me 'raw', as it were. I found that it doesn't soak into fried vegetables the way light olive oil can, perhaps because you can turn up the heat with no fear of burning it. The only real negative point is that fragrance is not pleasant, to be honest - but as sniffing oil isn't a regular past-time of mine, I can get past that!
All in all, when you take the culinary benefits (taste and practical use) and the health benefits, I think a bottle of rapeseed oil should be added to every kitchen, replacing vegetable oils or sunflowers oils which are generally imported...and here's the best bit...pretty much every bottle of rapeseed oil you'll find on a supermarket shelf comes from UK farms! And if you want to really reduce your food miles...our very own Cheshire grown Flower of Gold rapeseed oil is just perfect.
Now being stocked at ASDA and online at Artisan Foods, you too can support the healthy oil revolution while buying better than British...and buying Cheshire!
No comments:
Post a Comment