10 KEY USES OF EXTRA VIRGIN OLIVE OIL
According to Carmen Ruscalleda. The famous chef explains how to use extra virgin olive oil in the kitchen. This is her Decalogue.
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Raw
When you eat it alone with bread, or with bread and tomato, or dressing raw or cooked vegetables, extra virgin olive oil is the main protagonist.
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Raw and crushed
With fresh or dried herbs (with parsley and sage to make a green oil), or in a vinaigrette (it is very important because it is the great binding agent of vinaigrettes).
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Emulsified sauces
In minced, in mayonnaise (with a good extra virgin olive oil they become of a very different category). Mayonnaise can be flavored with a tomato confit or sautéed herbs and turned into a red or green mayonnaise.
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Confit
Slow heat or low temperature vacuum confit. To confit very slowly some quail legs or mushrooms. In this case, the extra virgin olive oil becomes a semi-preserve that you can then use to finish a pasta or rice dish.
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Fried foods
We must lose our fear of fried food. Frying is healthy if the extra virgin olive oil is good and has not been denatured, and if it is used wisely. Evidently it has a short life for frying, but for blond potatoes or tempura it is very important.
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Sofritos
It is necessary to use a good extra virgin olive oil for frying because it will leave the sofrito in the perfect point and will preserve it even better. I always have at home an onion that I have sautéed for many hours only with olive oil. I make them in strips and when I finish I put them in a little bag and put them in the freezer. I do the same with a tomato and some peppers. And this way, those noodles, that rice, those potatoes will never be “more of the same”.
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Roasts
In the casserole or in the oven, with just one meat or mixing them, something very typical of Mediterranean gastronomy. The extra virgin olive oil will help to caramelize and bring out all those fantastic juices of roasted meat.
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Baking
With shorter roasts, for fish, which require less temperature because they have a more delicate texture, or for vegetables. It is important the extra virgin olive oil thread, which will make sweat the flavor of the product and will become a perfumed sauce of the same extra virgin olive oil.
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Paellas
In rice, fideuás, you start first frying the pasta to make it dry and then it is perfect, vigorous. In this case the quality of the extra virgin olive oil is very important.
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In pastry
In pastry making it pairs very well with chocolate, not only cold. But a “ganache” type chocolate, warm and melting, with a touch of extra virgin olive oil and salt, is magnificent. And a creamy ice cream, which can be almond or vanilla, with a touch of extra virgin olive oil is fantastic.
