Kitchen Essentials

[Murgos]

That reminds me.   One of my all time favorite single guy meals to cook is to get a couple of pieces of fresh bone in, skin on chicken (I prefer a drumstick and a thigh, YMMV).  Heat some extra virgin olive oil in a large pan (a good bit of oil, like 1/8" or more in the bottom of the pan) to medium heat, put chicken in pan, add salt and pepper to taste, cook until golden brown turning often.

Simple, delicious, inexpensive, smells good, takes 20 minutes.  Serve with a salad and a light beer.

I usually use a lid to keep the oil from splattering, just don't put it on tight, leave enough of a gap so that the steam can vent.

[Miasma]

The last time I went to the grocery store and needed to buy olive oil they had changed the name from "extra virgin olive oil" to "extra light-tasting olive oil", all references to virgin had been purged.  This political correctness stuff is going to far.

[Sky]

I took a course at an adult school once. I needed it to graduate high school early. It was beginning computers, and my god, it was horrible.

You were in high school, and it was beginning computers. That's hardly a way to form an opinion about something!

This thread really isn't about cooking, that's VL's snacky thread :) But I made some leftovers from the bbq monday. Had some hot sausage I de-cased and fried up with half an onion, half a bell pepper and half of one of those ridiculous long hots I mentioned in the VL thread (all local produce, and the sausage was local, too). Threw it on a sub roll and slathered on some german mustard (also local, woohoo! from the place that makes the besy conies evar). Mangia.

[hal]

Oil

My god do I have a list of pet peeves. Take a frying pan add some extra virgin olive oil and {STOP as soon as the heat hits that oil its pure olive oil. Not extra virgin }. Use extra virgin only for cold uses. Its like balsamic vineagar, there are are many and they are tasty. Please do not fry with it unless you are willing to throw fistfulls of money down the drain. Try your recipe with pure olive oil. I seem to allways buy Filippo Berio pure olive oil in the 3 liter can. Sawed in half they make great pots for rosemary and basil. Your cooking will be just as tasty, you will have more spending money and the addition of fresh herbs will make you cooking efforts much better.

[Murgos]

I disagree and think there is a very real difference in cooking with pure olive oil, light olive oil or extra virgin olive oil or whatever.  For one thing its a stronger a more pleasant, and mouth watering odor and the taste transfered to the meat is milder and sweeter and just better.

Here's a hint if you find it seems to cost a lot.  Don't buy it in trendy little bottles.

Also, heated extra virgin olive oil != pure olive oil.  Who ever told you that was smoking crack.  Pure olive oil can, and usually does, have chemically treated olive oil in it to remove or alter flavors and reduce the acidity (because it's CRAP, you see?).  Extra virgin olive oil is simply pure, unadulterated olive oil from the first pressing and that has been judged of higher quality and flavor than virgin or lower grades of olive oil.

YMMV but I'm very happy with cooking with extra-virgin on the RARE occasions I fry with it.

If you look at what I said the ONLY spices and flavors I used in that dish are salt, pepper and the natural the flavor of the meat and the olive oil.  The quality of the oil is a very serious portion of the flavor.  So, in short.  Fuck Off and Die Heathen!!!   :-D

From wiki-pedia

Label wording

Olive oil vendors choose the wording on their labels very carefully.

    * "100% Pure Olive Oil" is often the lowest quality available in a retail store: better grades would have "virgin" on the label.
    * "Made from refined olive oils" suggests that the essence was captured, but in fact means that the taste and acidity were chemically produced.
    * "Light olive oil" actually means refined olive oil, not a lower fat content. All olive oil has 120 calories per tablespoon (34 J/ml).
    * "From hand-picked olives" may indicate that the oil is of better quality, since producers harvesting olives by mechanical methods are inclined to leave olives to over-ripen in order to increase yield.
    * "First cold press" means that the oil in bottles with this label is the first oil that came from the first press of the olives. The word cold is important because if heat is used, the olive oil's chemistry is changed.

[Lt.Dan]

Olive oil does have a low smoking point so if you want to sear or brown meat crank up the heat on the empty pot, wait for it to heat up, then add oil just before meat.  And do not crowd the pan.

[Sky]

I use olive oil for salads and cold purposes, or to drizzle over a finished dish. I use cheap vegetable oil for seasoning my pots and pans. I use canola oil or peanut oil for cooking and frying.

[Furiously]

The last time I went to the grocery store and needed to buy olive oil they had changed the name from "extra virgin olive oil" to "extra light-tasting olive oil", all references to virgin had been purged.  This political correctness stuff is going to far.

Maybe it was a slutty year for the olives...

[Sky]

I checked last time I was at the market, and could not find a single bottle labelled such.