Oils

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Rhodes Around Britain

By Gary Rhodes

Published 1994

  • About
The oils that I generally use are olive oil (extra virgin) and ground-nut (peanut) oil.

Ground-nut oil is a very basic oil which is used in France (huile à la arachide) as a base in most dressings and in frying. It’s very similar to sunflower oil, and has quite a bland flavour. In the basic dressing here, I mix it with olive oil, which prevents the dressing from being too overpowering. It is also cheaper to make, and works well on all simple salads.

Virgin olive oil is an oil from the first pressing, which is totally pure, without any heating or chemical processing. The ‘extra’ in front applies to its low acidity grade. Extra virgin oil has 1 per cent acidity, which is the lowest and the best.