How Should You Choose an Oil and For What? (Pt 2)

Mrs. Tom is barefoot in Tuscany

Continued: FROM 5/15/12

Cooking with propane gas from Proctor Gas the propane people

As we emerged out the back end of the tunneled walls a steady rain continued to fall. The walls led way into a cobble stone courtyard about the size of a basketball court. There appeared to be about four stone buildings nestled around the courtyard and it was desolate, nobody in sight. We stopped to survey the scenario that Linda had charted us into. Just when it seemed as though we needed to turn around and high tail it out of there, a small sunken door, round at the top, resembled a hobbit hole opened and a young girl who had to crouch over to exit, appeared and took the one step up to the courtyard..

 As we sat in the middle of this courtyard and the young girl approached the car, I heard my brother say three words "thank you Lord". They were not words of relief about the concerns that we harbored thinking would be meet by a shotgun. Instead as the girl approached the car she was wearing a white apron and carrying something in it. She was holding the apron from the bottom up forming a pouch like a marsupial. Once my brother got a closer look at the  pouch...it was filled with fresh homemade sausage...game on...thank you Linda!

We asked the young girl about the town and she told us that Sofia would be glad to give us a tour. How would we find Sofia? The young lady pointed and yelled "Sofia". Mrs. Tom had to lean out the window to look up and there was a stone tower straight ahead some 40 feet in the air. A moment later Sofia appeared in the tower opening answering the call of her name. Her hair was long, midnight black and wet from a shower. Our little sausage making girl said these people would like a tour. "just a moment I will be right down". Just like that, we were amazed!

We had stumbled literally into the tiny village of Volpaia Italy famous for their olive oil. On this chilly rainy day we ate steaming hot sausage and peppers, sipped full bodied Tuscan wine and toured their olive oil production. Deliverance...I think not, we had discovered a little piece of heaven.

There are hundreds of varieties of olives and they vary from year to year as do grapes. Weather and soil will affect the crops from year to year as does the time when you choose to harvest the olives and the method of trimming the trees. When you see that olive oil is green it indicates that the olives were raked by hand early before they ripened on the tree. This process is labor intensive and hard on the hands. Pickers will tape their fingers to protect them. So when you pay for the oil and it seems expensive think again about what it takes to get that pure gold from the tree to the bottle.

How should you choose an oil and for what?

There are many kinds of oil out there and can be confusing when you are trying to select one. The truth is you shouldn't choose one but have a few different kinds on hand for different uses.

The kings are the extra virgin and virgin olive oils the difference being the acidity levels. Extra virgin must be less than 1% acidity and virgin can be up to 3%. Olive or Pomace oil is less pricy and has a great flavor profile without over powering what you are cooking with it. I suggest it for all your infused oil needs.

"Light Oil" according to Michael Chiarello (our oil guru) is not healthier. It is just a marketing gimmick he says, it's nonsense to pay more for less. I get it Michael thanks for the heads up!

Michael's book Flavored Oils  is where much of the research on infused oils and cooking with them has come from.

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.