How Should You Choose an Oil and For What? (Pt 1)

Mrs. Tom is Barefoot in Tuscany

Now that grilling season is upon us let's turn our attention to grilling light with infused olive oils. Now is the time to put them up and let them develop their intense wonderful flavors for the summer grilling season. We will talk about a number of ways to infuse oils, cold infusion and warm. Always remember that fresh pungent herbs and vegetables will bring your infused oils to life the quickest and with optimum flavor profiles. Use ingredients at their peak of season and your oils can be ready in as little time as a week.

In 2000 Mrs. Tom led a excursion to Tuscany, a few friends and brother Chef Peter. It was a culinary journey to say the least, we all made a pact that we would not stay in the cities but explore the countryside in pursuit of the peasant foods and cultures of Italy, most explicitly Tuscany. We referred to it as Barefoot in Tuscany because we were exploring the country off the beaten trail followed by most tourists.

One of the party brother Peter's wife Linda fashioned herself an expert map reader and arguably an expert at most things!. An expert for our purposes at finding the roads less traveled. Like three blind mice, we followed Linda's directions on a rainy gloomy day, during one of our journeys into Tuscany. It appeared to all of us in the car that we were smack dab in the middle of a farmer's field...we were sure it was not a road at all and everybody's patience began to strain a bit! Linda held her ground saying we were in fact on a road to someplace fun. Mrs. Tom was concerned but her best friend Ron was driving and she trusted him to deliver us from harms way. After about 20 minutes of uncertainty and thinking we might be greeted abruptly by a double barrel shotgun we noticed some tall stonewalls lining both sides of the dirt road we were on. The stone walls were ten feet high and there was room for only one car at a time, yikes where are we, surely we were headed into some type of peril. We thought  we might be about to experience the Tuscan equivalence to deliverance?

 To be continued on the next blog happy grilling

Over the next few weeks Mrs. Tom is going to take into the world of infused oils for your backyard cooking.

Roasted garlic paste and oil

Ingredients

12 whole heads of garlic

1 and 3/4 cups extra virgin olive oil
salt and fresh ground black pepper

Pre heat the oven to 375 degrees F

With a sharp knife cut the tops of the garlic off exposing the white very top of the garlic. Peel off the outer layer of loose skins. A ceramic covered baking dish is the best but any roasting pan covered with foil will do. Place the garlic cut tops up tightly into the pan. Cover with oil and season w/ S&P.

Let the garlic roast for about an hour and or until the garlic is popping through the skins. Uncover for about 10 more minutes a to let the garlic brown. Remove the garlic and squeeze the garlic from the skins. Use the garlic paste as you would butter spread it on bread, pizza and use it when sautéing. Roasting it gives it a much more mellow flavor.

Store in the refrigerator covered with a bit of oil on the top that you used to roast it. Best used in 3 days.

Reserve the oil in a sealed glass jar use it within 10 days.