THE oil to cook with! (Sainsbury's Groundnut Oil)

Member Name: vanillawinegum

Product:	Sainsbury's Groundnut Oil
Date:	04/07/09 (135 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Very versatile, withstands high temperatures, lovely, subtle flavour

Disadvantages: Not suitable for people with nut allergies

Groundnut oil is one of those lesser known basics for cooking which is really worth knowing about.

For one, you might be surprised to learn that it has quite similar properties to that of olive oil.

To demonstrate, reading the label of my extra virgin olive oil I can see it is made up of 13.1% saturates, 7.5% polyunsaturates, and a whopping 66.7% of those ultra-healthy mono-unsaturates - very good for the heart. In comparison, groundnut oil has virtually the same percentage of saturates (the worst nasties) at 15%; while it is quite a bit higher in polyunsaturates at 30%, it has a pretty good majority of mono-unsaturates at 55%.

Not to be sniffed at! - Especially as, unlike olive oil, groundnut oil is strong and does not "disappear" into food when you fry at high temperatures, charring or even burning your vegetables.

Don't get me wrong, good quality olive oil is particularly lovely when drizzled over salad or into a sauce when it has finished cooking, so that you don't damage the flavour or the delicate goodness, but cooking with the stuff (I find) is a bit iffy, and can add quite an odd tang to meals. For this reason, I think it's worth having both oils in the kitchen for the two separate purposes: to either add flavour and goodness at the end of the cooking process, or to get the food through the cooking process in the first place!

In case you're interested, rapeseed oil also has fairly similar levels of mono-unsaturates, although it isn't as strong as groundnut oil and doesn't give that lovely, nutty flavour which goes so well with stir fried courgettes or aubergines - yum!

Summary: Delish!