There are a hundred different kinds of oil at my grocery store. What kind should I be buying for cooking Veeky Forums...

There are a hundred different kinds of oil at my grocery store. What kind should I be buying for cooking Veeky Forums? What oils do you buy?

First you have to think about what you're cooking with the oil, and how you're using it. Know the smoke points and flavors of various oils. Once you have that fundamental information, picking the right oil is easy.

Depends on what you're cooking. Olive oil is the obvious choice for most south European cuisine, and peanut oil is a staple in Asian cuisine. It all depends on the taste you want to impart on your food and how hot you're getting the pan. Different oils have different smoke points, and burning oil can leave a gross taste in your food.

I can't overstate the importance of a proper thermometer if you want to have a lot of control over your cooking, as it allows you to break many common "rules" of cooking and create some very interesting dishes. It's a culinary sin to deep-fry with olive oil, for example, but Mario Batali entirely disagrees and often uses it in his own cooking. I'm more inclined to agree with the jolly fat Italian, but even he uses a thermometer when deep frying with EVOO and ensures that it never gets hotter than 340-360 degrees. Do some research and make your own choices, and with enough experience you'll be able to confidently shitpost about how everyone is frying their foods incorrectly (except for you).

Another note about EVOO:
The ideal olive oil is not gold in color, but yellow-green. Sip a teaspoon of your oil; if you feel a spicy tingle in the back of your throat, it's the good stuff. The best EVOO I've ever had was from a tiny region of Lazio, and the flavor profiles were off the fucking charts; dipping bread in it could've been considered a meal. Conversely, the worst EVOO I've ever had was nearly indistinguishable from vegetable oil in taste and color. Follow your tongue, and whichever makes you say "god damn" with enough ebonic twinge is the one you want to stick with.

tl;dr don't bother with colavita, filippo berio, or anything on the bottom shelf.

I've heard olive oil taste starts to decline after a few months. I got a huge container of olive oil that's about 6 months old at this point and still tastes fine to me. Do I just have bad tastebuds lads?

no, olive oil will keep forever as long as it's kept in the dark and exposed to minimal oxygen. the absolute last thing you want to store olive oil in is pic related, whoever invented this piece of shit should be executed

Get California or Australia olive oil.

Anything Mediterranean: fake mafia oil.

just use goose grease

EVOWO

Only buy extra virgin olive oil if it's from Greece. Other countries aren't as stringent on their quality control of olive oil production/sales.
Also, never buy pomace unless you need fuel for an oil lamp.

explain

The mafias take a shit, put it in a press and try to extract the tiny remnants of olive oil from their fat spaghetti dinner and sell it to people for cheap

wake up sheepo

Houston, we have a boner.

I bought some flax seed oil to make a salad dressing with, what else is it good for?

Where I live there's,

Vegetable Oil
Canola Oil
Olive Oil

Nothing else and only in 2 brands total. I once asked if they'd have peanut oil and they ordered some. Evidently, I'm the only person who bought any. They don't have it now.

Just get the most expensive one, can't go wrong

Where do you live lad?

BFE, USA

Peanut Oil or Rice Bran oil for most things, frying, mayonnaise, high smoke point, clean neutral flavour, healthy
Olive Oil for low heat, frying garlic for red sauce etc- italian food, low smoke point
Expensive Olive oil for dressings
Ghee for indian food, very high smoke point
Coconut oil for baking muesli and memeing it up sometimes, high smoke point
Sesame oil as a seasoning, not to be fried in
cheap Canola oil for shallow/ deep frying, not so healthy, not as nice as pricier peanut/ rice bran
Butter for toast, baking, finishing steaks, pan sauces & frying fish, low smoke point
Duck Fat for oven chips

Just tried some San Remo EVOO, nice greenish colour that I'm unaccustomed to but no spice and it tasted like cardboard.

Thanks oil bro.

I thought canola was supposed to be healthy?

From highest smoke point to lowest, this is what I use.

Peanut Oil - nice and clean
Bacon Fat - if you're not saving yours in a mason jar each time you cook bacon, then you're fucking up
Grapeseed Oil - like a neutral olive oil
Butter - self explanatory, can't use too high of heat or the milk solids scorch
California Olive Ranch EVOO - this is the only brand of olive oil you should buy unless you're going boutique

I guess also shoutout for coconut oil. The neutral kind has housewife health benefits, but the more flavorful is great for things like shrimp. Also, when I order prime rib, I like to keep the fat and render it out on low for hours and filter. It makes things taste extra beefy.

why do chefs use olive oil to sear shit (I've seen this with steaks in lots of videos). The smoke point is garbage and is guaranteed to be passed when you do that. I can understand as a finishing touch or whatever but it's almost as bad as butter.

my mum memed me into thinking that
iunno if it's true
Last time i tried to research if an oil was healthy or not i wanted to kill myself
Rice bran or peanut are nicer anyway

You can start with a lot of flavor, and lose 50-75% of it through burn off, or you could start with zero. It's just a matter of making sure not to scorch it and turn rancid (drunk and not remembering the actual term), but on a quick sautee on high heat you should be okay.

yeah right fucker, like im gonna drive to fucking Greece every time i need some oil. fuckin idiot.

>why do chefs use olive oil to sear shit
They're using refined aka "light" olive oil. That does have a high smoke point. Don't confuse that with Extra-virgin, which has the low smoke point.

The flavor of EVOO doesn't "Burn off" and disappear, it goes from flavorful to nasty and burnt tasting.

It's amongst the best for seasoning cast iron and carbon steel.

it's ease of use for restaurants where they know the oil won't be in there for more than a day

peanut oil is the best oil

Peanut oil for high heat stir frying
Vegetable or canola oil for most sauteeing or deep frying
Extra virgin olive oil for dressings or other non-cooked applications

canola is the best all purpose oil, kys southerner

it says on your oil cap
SAE 5w-20 for me

canola stinks like shit when you try to fry with it

Go to bed dad

Another scam by big auto. Save some cash and just use vegetable oil

ignore this cunt get olive oil from california
no jokes
italy france spain and greece send t he US their olive factory floor sweepings
tunisia too

>Only buy extra virgin olive oil if it's from Greece. Other countries aren't as stringent on their quality control of olive oil production/sales.

I can't imagine a country with as many problems as Greece could possibly avoid the olive oil fraud that plagues other countries.

this
also fine for cheapo oil
I keep the good truffle oil, cold pressed EVOO and premium infused oils in the wine cellar.

sweet nonanswer u piece of dogshit, bro

Get Carbonell in the red tin to the right of the second shelf from the bottom. It's the only olive oil I can vouch for out of all the ones in your photo. It's great for cooking but you should get a superior evoo too for using raw on stuff. None of the other olive oils in the pic seem trustworthy.