Olive Oil and Cooking Fats

If there were a rule for cooking with oil in Turkey, it would be to promote the use of olive oil in all dishes where the oil adds something to the dish and to reserve the lighter, less flavoured sunflower oil for deep-frying. Olive oil is used lavishly in areas where it is easily available, but in parts of central and eastern Anatolia, where it is scarce or expensive, both the Turks and the Kurds cook with sheep’s tail fat (kuyrukyağı), a distinct rancidtasting clarified butter, or a fresh creamy butter, made from the milk of cows, sheep or goats and, occasionally, from the milk of water buffalo.