While cooking at home, you can use oil that has been infused with just about any flavor to add a bit of zest to your dishes.Food can be cooked in it, or you can even put a little infused oil on top of the food just before serving it for a bit of a flavor boosting garnish.The growing popularity of using infused oils at home reflects the trend of chefs using infused oil in restaurants.Chefs have been using their own recipes for unique flavors of oils in their restaurants for years, each with their own level of success.
The head chef at the River Cafe in Brooklyn, David Burke has created his own unique infusion of lavender petals and high quality oil for use in a fresh fruit gratin.He claims that the taste is without equal, one of those rare culinary discoveries, news of which travels far and wide.
There is a growing movement of chefs using infused oil in restaurants, mostly in response to a growing health awareness sweeping the nation as people seek to abandon saturated and trans fats.A whole new culinary art form has cropped up involving the creative use of different oils in cooking.Animal fats are out, vegetable and olive oils are in.New methods of oil refinement and production are leading to more readily available oils made from alternative plants, such as grape seeds to sunflower seeds.
Even fast food restaurants are jumping on the wagon when it comes to healthier oils.The trend is now for restaurants that use large amounts of oil to deep fry foods to use low saturate fat oils in place of animal fats.Some even create their own proprietary blend of vegetable oils, but the general result is always the same- healthier food with no sacrifice to flavor.
With the recent surge in healthy oil usage, it comes as no surprise, chefs using infused oil in restaurants.For example, Gonzalo Figueroa of the Pipeline restaurant in New York infuses his peanut oil with shrimp shells for drizzling over shrimp linguine.Other recipes at other restaurants include smoked lobster in apricot oil or red snapper with toasted fennel and saffron infused oil.
While the chef using infused oils in restaurants is a relatively recent trend, it is far from a new idea.For literally thousands of years, Mediterranean peoples have been using infused oils in their cooking.For almost as long as people have been cooking with oils, they have been infusing them with herbs and spices.The renewed interest in infused oils is what makes the trend so new and attractive.New ideas about how to combine flavors using oil infusions have flooded the food world, with great results.
As far as what flavors chefs are infusing into oils goes, there really is no end to what can be done.Everything from shellfish to fruits to the more traditional herbs is all an excellent choice, and each has its own particular advantages and uses.
