Four Flavored Oils

In recent years, there has been a marked increase in flavor-infused oils available to cooks. Some taste adequate, and the others weak. With their popularity has come a spate of manufacturers who suggest they have essentially invented the genre. They have not.

Flavored oils have existed in China for more than two thousand years. Long before the peanut made its way to China in the 1600s and became the prime source of cooking oil, oils were pressed from sesame seeds, grape seeds, and even turnips.

I use peanut oil as the base for my infused oils because it is receptive to other flavors, absorbing the scents of whichever vegetable or spice it is wedded to by heat. These flavored oils imbue dishes with subtle tastes: the emphasis on inherent flavors, not on alteration.