A Note on Olive Oil

Appears in
Alastair Little's Italian Kitchen
Alastair Little's Italian Kitchen

By Alastair Little

Published 1996

  • About
A unifying theme of any food at La Cacciata is the excellent oil produced on the estate. However, we do not use this olive oil all the time. It is far too good to fry with or to use where strong flavours – garlic, chilli, anchovy etc – are present. Here are my three grades of olive oils as used throughout this book. (The quantities given in the recipes are not absolutely precise – you can generally vary them according to taste.)

Good Regular supermarket own brands or generic Italian brands of extra virgin olive oil are what I mean by good oil. They shouldn’t be too expensive. These oils often come in large tins, which can be dramatically cheaper. So, if you intend to plough through this book, I advise you to buy a 4 litre tin!