Cooking with Olive Oil

There is a lifetime of culinary pleasure and experimentation to be experienced with olive oil if one never actually heated the oil, but rather simply used it in raw or cold preparations and as a finishing condiment. However, applying heat to olive oil—and cooking with it—adds other layers of culinary possibility.

In general, when using the best, most aromatic extra virgin olive oils—such as those with intense green fruitiness or medium green fruitiness—it is best to cook at lower temperatures to preserve the aromatics. This is not, however, a matter of safety or smoke point, but simply flavor preservation (and the preservation of antioxidants and other healthful, bioactive compounds). As Catalan-born, Austin-based chef Daniel Olivella likes to emphasize, if when making a sofrito—a base of many Catalan and Spanish dishes—one adds good olive oil and chopped onions to a cold pan and keeps the pan on lower heat for a longer period of time, the result will be delicious, still aromatic, melted onions. Chef Ana Sortun of Olena in Cambridge, MA follows a similar strategy, often keeping pan heat low and aromatic olive oils below a certain temperature as she builds flavor in her vegetable-centric, Eastern Mediterranean─inspired cooking.

Try cooking a soft scramble of eggs with an aromatic olive oil on low to medium low heat and you’ll never think of eggs the same way again. Similarly, very simple pasta dishes—such as a spaghetti with only Parmigiano Reggiano cheese, some fresh cracked pepper, perhaps some fresh herbs,  and a copious amounts of an excellent olive oil—benefit from adding most of the oil at room temperature or with minimal heating. The same is true for other low and slow Mediterranean preparations mentioned below.

The higher the heat and the more complex the preparation, the less important it is to use the most aromatic (typically expensive) oils, unless of course one’s budget can afford excellence even here. But in this case, we still encourage the use of good quality extra virgin olive oil whenever an option.

Then comes the question that has generated much heat on the Web: can you (deep) fry with olive oil? First, let’s state that yes, you can absolutely fry with olive oil with great results. But that is not really the right question to be asking. The better question is: what is the best way to deep fry with olive oil?  And the following question: what should I consider when thinking about how to fry with olive oil?

Here’s what you need to know, according to the technical experts at the International Olive Council: 

An interesting paper recently published in the journal ACTA Scientific Nutritional Health by Australian researcher C. Guillaume et al. reveals that there is more than a high smoke point that recommends olive oil for frying. They found, after heating a number of common oils including extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) to 240°C and then holding the oils at 180°C for 6 hours,  that the “EVOO yielded low levels of (unhealthy) polar compounds and oxidative by-products (compared with other oils).   EVOO’s fatty acid profile and natural antioxidant content allowed the oil to remain stable when heated (unlike oils with high levels of polyunsaturated fats [PUFAs] which degraded more readily).”

But turning once again to the issue of flavor preservation and cost (versus solely focusing on safety and health): If one is shallow frying small amounts of food where less oil is required (such as with pan-fried, blanched almonds),  it will likely make sense to use a good-quality extra virgin olive oil—depending on budgets and desired flavor outcomes. In the case of deep frying, where large amounts of oil are required, many chefs and cooks will switch to the lesser expensive “olive oil” where one is getting some good olive oil flavor but not paying a premium for highly aromatic oil that will need to be replaced after four or five times of use. Of course, if budgets permit, there is no issue with using more expensive extra virgin olive oils as, again, they will be below the smoke point if proper, deep-frying techniques are followed.

If you haven’t tried deep frying with olive oil—or extra virgin olive oil—you are missing out on what Mediterranean people have enjoyed for centuries, from eggplant fritters to fried small fish to falafel.

One final note on frying: one area that deserved additional research is around variables affecting frying temperature when sautéing vegetables. When vegetables are sautéed in a pan with extra virgin olive oil, the high moisture content of the vegetables—depending on the type of vegetables,  their configuration in the pan, and the amount of oil used—can contribute to keeping pan temperatures lower that what might be imagined, and thereby conserving more of the special flavors and other positive attributes of extra virgin olive oil.

Olive Oil, Vegetables, Pulses, and Whole Grains: Seasonality and Culinary Insight

The contemporary plant-forward movement in the U.S. can also be characterized as “veg-centric,” that is focused on vegetables as the culinary stars. Foundational for success with vegetables in restaurant and foodservice settings is, of course, having the best possible, seasonal, high-flavor ingredients. Having secured that, the Mediterranean olive oil kitchen has much to offer in terms of culinary strategy. 

Unfortunately, with changing lifestyles in most Mediterranean countries (i.e., less cooking at home), the influx of convenience and other processed foods, and the higher consumption of meat and other foods from animal foods than were typical of the traditional Mediterranean diet, many of the best examples of the vegetable-centric olive oil kitchen are disappearing or in retreat in terms of consumption and visibility.

Where Americans have most embraced olive oil—including some of the world’s very best olive oils—is for salads and cold preparations. There is still much to learn here, though, including the size and depth of what we might call the Mediterranean olive oil “cold kitchen.” But even when making what we would consider a more contemporary, American salad, a spirit of discovery can bring important new results. Joshua McFadden, chef/owner of Ava Gene’s in Portland, OR and author of Six Seasons: A New Way with Vegetables, rethinks how to dress a salad to maximize aromatics and the overall taste experience: he advises to first add the vinegar, salt,  and fresh-cracked pepper, toss—and only then add the olive oil, toss again, and serve and eat immediately. And this from someone who takes his oil very seriously: “Olive oil is a huge reason I enjoy cooking. I really would have no idea about how to make food taste good without it.” 

Beyond salads, tapas, mezze, and a variety of cooked vegetable and mixed preparation dishes, a few additional strategies warrant our attention: 

• On the one hand, Americans’ current obsession with the best possible produce simply prepared—and served raw or lightly cooked and still brightly colored—has produced many delicious food experiences. Few people would care to champion dull, grey, overcooked broccoli sitting on a steam table for a couple of hours. And yet, from a Mediterranean perspective, Americans are largely missing out on a whole category of vegetable (or vegetable and pulses) cooking the Greeks call “lathera.” These are essentially vegetables braised or stewed in olive oil with onions, garlic, tomatoes, various herbs (basil parsley, dill, mint, oregano, etc.), sometimes beans or other pulses, and then finished with more olive oil. The visual result is not necessarily cover material for a glossy American food magazine, but when made with peak-of-season produce and the best olive oils, the flavors are truly seductive. Importantly, the long, slow cooking preserves the aromatics in the oil, the produce, and the herbs.

• A related technique that holds great promise for American cooks and chefs is the use of sous vide for slowly cooking vegetables—or other foods to go into veg-centric meals—in olive oil. In restaurants, chefs often shy away from purchasing and using the best olive oils because of expense. Some years ago, Kyle Connaughton, chef/owner of SingleThread in Healdsburg, CA,  presented the possibilities of sous vide in the olive oil kitchen to an international audience of top olive oil producers at a Beyond Extra Virgin conference in Cordoba, in the south of Spain. Chef Connaughton chose leeks to cook with a small amount of excellent olive oil—low and slow in sous vide, achieving meltingly tender but still-intact leeks which married the still-very-much-intact aromatics from both the oil and the leeks. The consensus in tasting the dish? A culinary triumph.

• Or for a memorable preparation of a classically veg-centric salade nicoise, use the sous vide method with the tuna in a stellar olive oil with either mild green fruitiness or ripe fruitiness. Again, low and slow: yielding spectacular results at manageable costs. Vacuum technology can also leverage the flavor of small amounts of fine olive oil with great results through a process of pressurized marination.

• Cold, Mediterranean-inspired soup is another underleveraged item that should have more prominence on American menus. What would the south of Spain be without the justifiably ubiquitous gazpacho? But why not apply that same approach and technique to a host of cold, puréed soups for summers in the U.S.?

• Then, if one thinks of the imperative in the plant-forward kitchen to cook and consume more pulses—beans, lentils, and chickpeas—the olive oil kitchen has much to offer. Pulses are central to Mediterranean cooking, and olive oil is used as a flavoring at the start of the cooking process, at the end, or when added to more complex preparations such as the tempering oil that is used to finish Turkish red lentil soup just before serving, which often combines olive oil, dried mint, and Aleppo pepper. In Tunisia, the breakfast favorite lablabi (Tunisian chickpea soup) is made craveable by the addition of olive oil, harissa, garlic,  and cumin to the chickpeas, and in Morocco, olive oil adds richness and flavor to harira, a spiced vegetable soup with chickpeas, lentils, cilantro,  and lemon. In the south of France, the popular panisse, or chickpea fries, would be inconceivable without olive oil for frying. In the eastern Mediterranean, as Americans now know well, hummus is created as a purée of chickpeas, tahini,  and olive typically served with a swirl of olive oil on top; and falafel, another chickpea prodigy and now a global favorite, is fried in olive oil.

• On the whole grain front, the Cretan dakos salad famously tops whole-grain barley rusks with grated tomato, fresh cheese, olives, capers, and copious amounts of local olive oil.  Whole grains never tasted so good. Whole-wheat pasta with chickpeas (more chickpeas!) and olive oil—ciceri e tria—reminds us of the richness of the Pugliese kitchen of southern Italy.