Indian Recipes and Vegetable Oil

jonny2510

I've started cooking a lot of Indian dishes recently, but have noticed they all seem to call for a lot of vegetable oil to be used.

When cooking chinese Ken Hom asks for 1 tablespoon per typical stir fry, the Indian dishes however seem to ask for 3 to 6 tablespoons :eek:

I try not to put as much as they suggest in, but was wondering if I could substitute vegetable oil for groundnut or sunflower oil, without affecting the flavour too much?

Would this be healthier (I seem to remember reading somewhere peanut oil is one of the least harmful to use).

Caterina

I went to a series of cookery classes organised by our local Primary Care Trust and they addressed different cultural and national styles of cooking, including Asian - they always said that there is no need to use so much oil, in fact one of the best foods we cooked was a lentil curry with rice and NO OIL at all!

I am sure you can adapt to use minimal oil - don't do away with oil altogether though, because it helps carry fat-soluble vitamins and nutrients into the body.

Vegetable oil is a generic name so you can interchange. A good oil to cook with is rapeseed (Sainsburys do an organic version in case you are totally into the health thing!).

HTH

jonny2510

Caterina wrote: »

...organic version in case you are totally into the health thing!).

HTH

Not totally into the health thing, but figured if I'm going to be cooking more and more indian food, I can't be having a few tablespoons of oil a day :rotfl: (at least not for very long).

Thanks for the response

MissBabs_2

My partner and I cook quite a lot of curries and usually use a tablespoon of oil per curry, so works out at 1/2 tablespoon per serving. Might not be authentic, but tastes fine to me...

jonny2510

MissBabs wrote: »

My partner and I cook quite a lot of curries and usually use a tablespoon of oil per curry, so works out at 1/2 tablespoon per serving. Might not be authentic, but tastes fine to me...

Think I'll start doing this, for all but my Saturday night curry which I'll keep authentic

jonny2510

Just realised, does anyone know is groundnut or sunflower oil a good substitute for vegetable oil with regards to

a)health?
b)taste? (both in Indian and standard cooking)

I'f be really interested to know (if anyone knows)

radiohelen

Groundnut oil is usually used because it heats to a high temperature without burning. It does cost more than sunflower oil but for stir frying I don't think you can beat it.
With regards to taste - I think you can taste a difference between sunflower and vegetable - the vegetable oil is usually a mixture including lots of rapeseed - those yellow fields in summer.
On health grounds - all oils are the same in terms of calories and any other oils/vitamins/good stuff - is destroyed by heating.....so really there is no difference between cooking with Extra Virgin Olive Oil and vegetable oil IMHO

zippychick

I wondered about the large quantity of oil in curries too, but assumed it added to the texture or thickness? I wonder what would happen if there was none added?

juliapenguin

The Food Programme on Radio 4 this week was about Omega 3 and how important it is for health, including mental health, which is a particular concern for me as I'm prone to anxiety. I'm pretty sure that they said that rapeseed and olive oil are both particularly high in Omega 3 - I'm going to listen to it again and change what I buy.

That sounds a bit off-topic, but I'm meaning to say that if you're still going to put the full amount of oil in your Saturday night special you could maybe go for the rapeseed, as I guess olive oil would give the wrong flavour for Indian dishes.