Cooking Oil - what do you use?

[Busymom]

cherrygal:

Yes I tried. You can see my post in the All About Baking thread where I made a gluten-free dark chocolate brownie with coconut oil. It smelt heavenly (a bit like freshly made nasi lemak) and tasted very good.


According to some websites, coconut oil has been maligned for years. Coconut oil contains about 50% lauric acid, which helps in preventing various heart problems including high cholesterol levels and high blood pressure. You can google the benefits of coconut oil and read about it. However, as it's still oil, don't eat too much of it.

So far, you can only get virgin coconut oil from pharmacies (my mom bought her pharmaceutical grade oil from Mustafa pharmacy) or organic food stores (I bought mine from NHF shop at Thomson Plaza). It ranges from $16+ to $20+ for 500ml.

Yes, I have read somewhere that coconut oil is good, but will read up more about it. Thanks for sharing

By the way, why must buy virgin grade coconut oil? Non-virgin grade not good enough?

[Busymom]

schweppes:

Busymom:

[quote=\"schweppes\"]

i like to bake sweet potatoes - sometimes thinly sliced or in wedges form, lightly flavored with sea salt. For added flavor, may also include a sprig of rosemary or oregano with the sweet potatoes during baking.

For the sea salt, I discovered this aromatic product from OZ, \"Flower Up\" where the ingredients include sea salt, juniper berries, sesame seed, caraway seed, lemongrass, elder flower, calendula and lavender. It's a grinder, so it makes the food oohhh so sedap!!

That sounds good! Maybe I can try it out at home and see if the kids like it. Where can you get Flower Up?

Cold Storage. At the bottled spices and herbs section.

A quick 3-5 grinds will flavor your food well. Find that anything more can your dish salty. Need to trial and error first as it also depends on what u cook and the volume of water/ liquids in your dish.[/quote] :thankyou:

Do you use this for all your cooking or only baking certain dishes?

We also use sea salt, but just the ordinary ones.

[cherrygal]

Busymom:

Yes, I have read somewhere that coconut oil is good, but will read up more about it. Thanks for sharing

By the way, why must buy virgin grade coconut oil? Non-virgin grade not good enough?

I have not seen non-virgin grade coconut oil leh. Dun see them in the supermarkets too...

So far, they are marketing coconut oil as a health product.

[schweppes]

cherrygal:

Busymom:

Yes, I have read somewhere that coconut oil is good, but will read up more about it. Thanks for sharing

By the way, why must buy virgin grade coconut oil? Non-virgin grade not good enough?

I have not seen non-virgin grade coconut oil leh. Dun see them in the supermarkets too...

So far, they are marketing coconut oil as a health product.

:scratchhead: maybe extra virgin grade is supposed to be the more superior quality - just like in olive oil?

[schweppes]

cherrygal:

Yes I tried. You can see my post in the All About Baking thread where I made a gluten-free dark chocolate brownie with coconut oil. It smelt heavenly (a bit like freshly made nasi lemak) and tasted very good.


According to some websites, coconut oil has been maligned for years. Coconut oil contains about 50% lauric acid, which helps in preventing various heart problems including high cholesterol levels and high blood pressure. You can google the benefits of coconut oil and read about it. However, as it's still oil, don't eat too much of it.

So far, you can only get virgin coconut oil from pharmacies (my mom bought her pharmaceutical grade oil from Mustafa pharmacy) or organic food stores (I bought mine from NHF shop at Thomson Plaza). It ranges from $16+ to $20+ for 500ml.

:thankyou: cherrygal for sharing. This sounds interesting. Will check it out.

[schweppes]

Busymom:

Do you use this for all your cooking or only baking certain dishes?

We also use sea salt, but just the ordinary ones.

i have the normal sea salt too. Usually get Maldon sea salt - maybe it's because I get my recipes from reading Nigella Lawson and Jamie O's cookbooks and they usually mention Maldon sea salt.

haha... sounds so atas right? Feel like a food snob. lol

[Busymom]

schweppes:

Busymom:

Do you use this for all your cooking or only baking certain dishes?

We also use sea salt, but just the ordinary ones.

i have the normal sea salt too. Usually get Maldon sea salt - maybe it's because I get my recipes from reading Nigella Lawson and Jamie O's cookbooks and they usually mention Maldon sea salt.

haha... sounds so atas right? Feel like a food snob. lol

Atas meh? This is called know how to enjoy life :imcool: :celebrate:

...but me suaku... Don't know them :oops:

[tinkertinker10]

I just attended a healthy workshop for cooking and the chief use coconut oil for baking as well.

[janet88]

I use olive oil for frying eggs…corn oil for cooking other dishes.

[onlyoliveoil]

SAHM_TAN:

I'm also confuse abt the olive oil. I'm not sure which type to use.

Normal cooking temperature is between 160-190°C. Ideal frying temperature is about 180°C.

On the other hand, the smoke point of the extra virgin olive oil is between 190-215°C, depending on its quality. The lower the Free Fatty Acid (FFA), the higher the smoke point.

A smoke point is defined as the oil begins to smoke and starts to form unhealthy compounds when heated over its tolerable limit.

Therefore, use extra virgin olive oil for low to medium temperature frying, and use pure or extra light olive oil or other cooking oils for deep frying.

Do note that pure or extra light olive oils are \"refined oil\", which have undergone chemical refinement and using heat and water in the extraction process. It is flavourless and odourless, and most, if not all of the nutrients have been lost during the extraction process.

Extra virgin olive oil is the highest grade among the olive oils. It is produced directly from the olives and does not use chemical, heat or water. Hence people call it \"olive juice\".

For health and flavour, use extra virgin olive oil to prepare your meals. For frying, also consider using extra virgin olive oil as much as you can, for example when we fry vegetables or eggs. In this case, we could reap the health benefits from both ingredients.

An illustration of how extra virgin olive oil could be best used: We make our chili oil using extra virgin olive oil. As it is an \"olive juice\", we feel safe to use the chili oil, instead of the traditional cooking oils where they are \"refined oils\" where chemical solvents have been used to make the oils.

For more information, please read the article at http://onlyoliveoil.vas.com.sg/use/