Best fat to bake with

[flubber]

Having a cholesterol problem I am very health conscious in what fats I use and mainly grill or use a skillet (I don't deep fry things) I use Virgin Olive Oil quite often but it is not a good thing to use when I do the rare roast (chicken, lamb, beef, pork) and gone are my lard or dripping days.

What is the best fat or oil that I can use that won't heap the bad cholesterol into my system? I don't need to drown anything in fat but I do need to baste things.

[violetblue]

I use sunflower for these cooking purposes, as olive oil burns at a lower temperature and spits all over the place.

[yesmadam]

Have you tried sunflower oil?...

[yesmadam]

lol, must have been typing as you posted violet... :-)

[Amara]

As you rightly say, frying, particularly deep fat frying is very bad, not only from a cholestrol point of view but also because cooking fats at high temperature releases nasty cancer causing chemicals.Best for avoiding this is butter, but again for high cholestrol this might not be the best thing. Coconut oil is quite good and so is olive oil but not the extra virgin, that should not be heated up, use the ordinary stuff. If I ever cook a chicken I cook it upside down so the juices run through the breast and keep it moist, so no need for basting. Other than that I steam/stir fry using a tiny bit of oil and then water and soy sauce with a lid on. If I use a skillet I dry fry, or just brush a tiny bit of oil onto the skillet first. If you do suffer with high cholestrol it is good to have plenty of essential fats ie oily fish, flax or linseed oil and nuts and seeds and less dairy products and meat. Amara xx

[flubber]

Right now I have bought a bottle of rapeseed oil (good,bad, or downright ugly?) Violetblue - you are soooo right about olive oil spitting all over the place. It's taken me an hour to clean the cooker which looked 7 years old and I only purchased it in July this year :(

I think I am right in saying that Olive Oil is good to brush over meat/poultry and of course drizzle over salads? Is sunflower oil better than rapeseed?

Tell you straight, it is HELL not eating a cooked crispy chicken skin and I loved bread and dripping with a bit if the jelly at the bottom.....but I am going to be good. Rapeseed or sunflower oil? I'll go with the majority of answers.

[yesmadam]

flubber, do you have a rotary spit in your oven?

[flubber]

No- this oven does not have one. My old one did and to truss a chicken up even using barbed wire and duct tape and subsequently threading it though an internal oven spit always resulted in the damned wings flapping all over the oven sides and dutifully falling off in a heap.

This new cooker is a fan assisted one with no rotary spit.

[yesmadam]

oh dear :-) sorry, lmao that did make me smile... just picturing you trussing a chicken up with that stuff!!! I know, I used to fight with the rotary spit too!!!....

I'd probably go with the monos and use the rapeseed oil, as you say... it's a rare treat to have a roast.

Hope you're eating lots of garlic too, good cleansing for the blood you know... ;-)

[flubber]

Eating garlic? eating garlic??

I'll have you know that I only have to open my mouth and I strip the summer growth from all trees at a distance of 500 yards.

yes - I am eating garlic!

[aurelia]

I use rapeseed oil as it is classed as one of the heaslthier oils like Olive Oil. I find that olive oil has a strong flavour. In the book from the Heart Assciation - sorry can't remember it's propper name - it lists Olive Oil and Rapeseed and Sunflower as "good oils and it doesn't have a strong taste for salads

[Amara]

I could bore you all day with the virtues of oil - having just written a 10 page essay on them. Basically sunflower oil contains Omega 6 and rapeseed Omega 3 - both are fine if they are cold pressed and eaten cold over salads. Heating most oil is bad it starts to produce "free radicals" which are carcenogenic chemicals which will do you no good. The only oils which should really be heated are Coconut butter, normal butter and olive oil. (ps I agree about the chicken skin even though I'm basically a vegan these days) Amara xx

[yesmadam]

lubbly stuff garlic :-)

as Amara says, and I have read the woes of carcinogenic causing fats, perhaps a small bit of butter under the chicken skin will suffice. and....

Garlic!!!!...... mmmmmm.....

Enjoy your roast dinner, you dont have them often.... xXx

[Rock'n'Roll]

Most things that are fried can be grilled. I brush skinless chicken breasts with olive oil,although rapeseed is supposed to be the healthiest, I just prefer the taste of olive.
You shouldn't fry with virgin olive oil as something happens to its consistency and spoils it. can't remember what though. If your grilling steak,just brush the grill with oil to help prevent sticking

[flubber]

I'm not frying with Olive oil, just trying to roast meat/poultry and I agree olive oil is not the best (it smokes, it spits and ruins any flavour) it seems rapeseed is good and I have bought that.

I'll quietly put myself in reverse -backing off and whistling nonchelantly -now that I seem to have started an argument between rapeseed and sunflower oil fans.

[nickmo]

And for the garlic lover - recipe for 'Chicken with 40 Cloves of Garlic' here

Sunflower oil is able to be boiled at high temps without deteriorating like some other oils, and as it has virtually no cholesterol and good Vit E content, won't transfer flavours to other foodstuffs when cooking one item followed bu another different item and is non-tainting i.e. has no overt flavour of its' own - I'd go with that one.

Alternatively - use Frylight or another spray oil so avaoid overloading the pans. You can also get oil misters for using any oil you want - chili oil or another infised one etc, and they are handy for salad dressing use and portion control.

You can safely reduce the amount of oil used for frying in most cases anyway, so get used to using less and for roasting, butter under the skin is good and self-bastes the bird. Also, no extra oil needed for duck or goose anyway, so try the alternatives too.

[tingirl]

Grapeseed oil is healthy and you can fry with it.

[crisgal]

I don't use any oil or fat when cooking meat. My chickens are lovely and juicy and joints cooked to perfection. I just baste them in their own juices. Is it ok to do that?