DANDR cautions not to "overheat" olive oil when cooking, but doesn't say how hot "overheating" is.

So I googled, and found all kinds of hits, including some claiming that if you overheat olive oil it puts out "TOXIC FUMES".

I found <a href="http://www.marksdailyapple.com/oil-fat-overheat-smoking-point/">this</a>, which was somewhat useful, but <a href="http://www.goodeatsfanpage.com/CollectedInfo/OilSmokePoints.htm">here</a> is something better.

Basically, you don't want to heat your oil to the smoking point. If you have recipes which call for high heat, as I do, you'll want to use virgin olive oil instead of extra virgin olive oil.

I think ghee (clarified butter) would be as good or even better. It has a smoke point of 485°F (252°C). JMO.

I use butter or coconut oil

That's really interesting why would virgin olive oil behave differently thatn EVOO?

I really respect lipid biochemist Mary Enig on anything concerning fats. She says:

http://www.westonaprice.org/The-Skinny-on-Fats.html


It's probably not a good idea to overheat olive oil at all - evoo or otherwise. Tallow, lard, ghee and coconut oil would be better choices for high heat, as they are more saturated and thus more stable.

But there are dishes that just don't taste the same without OO. If overheating means smoking, then probably the OO can be added towards the end when the dish is nearly ready?

CO is good, but for me it goes only with specific dishes also e.g. seafood.

I was brought up on the attitude that OO is for cooking, butter is for eating butter is something we spread on bread with jam, etc, mom thought its a waste cooking with butter lol butter should just be enjoyed fresh.

Oh yeh, we also used OO for salads and such

Well, I do have a Spanish cookbook that calls for frying meatballs in olive oil (nonspecific).

Haha sounds familiar lol - my mom spoilt my taste buds, fried eggs don't taste good to me unless they are fried in a bit of OO - butter and CO don't cut it for me

Chicken is the same, but if done in the oven goose/duck fat would do.

One thing that comes to mind is: Could you mix oo and something like tallow to make it more stable? Don't know, but I have done that. Makes me feel better, lol.

Yes you can mix the 2 oils for stability.

Oh good, thanks.

I can see the Wikipedia says so, but many other sites say 375. Makes you wonder.

yes, you can cook with olive oil. but i wouldn't do it unless I were standing over it the whole time, because I don't trust myself to maintain a safe temperature. If you don't want to have to be so careful with it you can use just a trace of it to grease the pan and add the bulk of it after cooking.

Like most I discourage any sort of deep frying with it.

Yep. Those unsaturated fats are reactive in a way that saturated fats aren't. The more double bonds in the chain, the more likely the fat is to form free radicals when it is heated. My rule of thumb is that if the oil doesn't need heating, like for salads, I'll use unsaturated fats (olive oil) and if I'm cooking, I'll use saturated fats (butter, coconut oil, lard).