Rapeseed oil

Shopping at the Farmers Market certainly seems to provide opportunities to try new things! Whilst shopping there yesterday, I got talking to one of the stall holders who was selling a product called "Oleifera Rapeseed Oil", which is a cooking oil made from locally grown rapeseed. As I have mentioned previously, I have been using hemp seed oil for my cooking (where butter doesn't suffice). This has worked really well, although the smoke point of this oil is quite low, which really makes it unsuitable for the more 'aggressive' cooking styles, such as stir-frying. The Oleifera product has a much higher smoke point (about 230 C, according to the website), which means that it can be used for a wider range of cooking styles. I tried some of the oil, soaked into a small cube of bread at the stall and it tasted great, even on it's own, so I decided that I would have to buy a bottle so that I could try it out.

Today provided the perfect opportunity to do that on my Sunday dinner, which consisted of honey-glazed pork chop with potatoes, peas and carrots. Sure enough, I was able to sear the meat in a hot pan without the oil starting to burn, which was great. The pork tasted great, but how much of that was down to the meat and the honey and how much was because of the oil, I'm not sure. I will have to conduct some further tests. There is plenty more information about the rapeseed oil on the website: http://www.borderfields.co.uk/oleifera/