Cooking with Yorkshire rapeseed oil

The latest product that I've been lucky enough to try as part of my ongoing quest to be the BBC Good Food Show's most annoyingly enthusiastic blogger was some fabulously garlicky rapeseed oil. Yorkshire Rapeseed Oil is produced over in North Yorkshire not far from my old stomping ground of York and, to be honest, was an easy sell. D and I always tend to use rapeseed oil as our house standard not just because it is a local thang but also because we love the flavour - light, very slightly grassy, very slightly nutty, it is great on its own and perfect for cooking. Yorkshire Rapeseed Oil for the win.

I must admit that, in the past, I've thought the idea of flavoured oils slightly gimmicky but this garlic oil may well have started to convert me. The problem with garlic is that it is very, very easy to burn - adding a subtle garlic hit through oil instead is genius. I used it to roast tomatoes and aubergine earlier this week and was very pleased with the results.

Along with the oil itself, I received a book whose title I have shamelessly poached for this post which made for very interesting reading, not least because the number of cake and pudding recipes in there really emphasised the versatility of rapeseed oil. I do have a tendency to reach for butter when I'm baking but I'd definitely be up for using oil as an alternative. From a health point of view I've completely lost track of where we are in the whole good fat, bad fat, three bags full fat debate, I'm mainly interested in using the best tools for the job. If oil makes a good cake or a good scone then, fine, I'm on it.

Dipping my toe in these waters, I knocked up a batch of cheese and garlic oatcakes using the garlic oil. The results made me wonder why I ever buy oatcakes. Give them a go - maybe with different flavoured oils (my book tells me that Yorkshire Rapeseed oil also make herby oil, peppery oil and spicy oil - the tinkers) or different cheese or (sob!) no cheese.

Ingredients

120g oatmeal
25g mature cheddar, finely grated
Tbsp garlic rapeseed oil
Up to 50ml freshly boiled water

Makes 8-10 oatcakes

Top cook tip! Don't have any oatmeal to hand? Just do as I did and blitz any oats you have knocking around the cupboard (I used a 50:50 blend of jumbo rolled oats and steel pin cut oats).

Preheat the oven to 160 and line a baking sheet with parchment.

Place your oatmeal, or blitzed oats, into a large bowl with the finely grated cheddar, plenty of black pepper and a pinch of salt, and toss together lightly.

Pour in the oil and, preferably using your hand in a sort of claw shape, gradually combine with the dry ingredients. Add the water a drop at a time until the mixture comes together into a soft dough.

For shaping these babies, I found the easiest thing was to take a small piece of dough, form into a ball and press flat between my two palms. The result is somewhat more rustic than the picture in the book but it worked and was amusing to do.

Bake the oatcakes for 20 mins or so until firm and golden and beginning to brown at the edges. It's advisable to flip them halfway through cooking to ensure an even bake.

Scoff. Preferably with additional cheese.

Thank you, Yorkshire Rapeseed Oil!

Cooking with fat

Minx gets tired trying to keep track of what she is supposed to be eating...

So the debate rages on about what the real enemy is when it comes to our eating - it seems that after years out in the cold someone has decided that fat isn't actually all that bad for you but having sugar in your tea is akin to...something dreadful.  I don't pay an awful lot of attention, to be honest; I have no intention of ditching any of the food groups, mainly because I am greedy and they taste nice and life is genuinely too short to spend it worrying all the time.

This much I do know, if you're counting points, or calories, or whatever, and you want to get your intake down a bit, shaving some of the fat out of a recipe often helps.  In most cases you can, at least, halve the amount of oil called for in a recipe with no particularly detrimental effects to the flavour but a decent calorie saving.  Gram for gram, fat has about double the amount of calories in it as does protein or carbohydrate.

And, when we're talking about pure energy content, all fat IS created equal.  Earlier this week, I watched Jamie Oliver pour several "lugs" (what is a lug, Jamie?  A good few tablespoons I reckon) of olive oil over a plate of mackerel and quinoa...and then refuse to add a knob of butter to his mashed potato.  Yes, there has been much written about the health benefits of olive oil, but that does not change the fact that pouring it willy nilly over your food is going to increase the amount of calories you consume by rather a lot.  Also, butter tastes good.  I love butter and cook with it often, and there is no reason you can't as long as you are sensible with regards quantities.  The idea that butter is "bad" while oil is "good" is a total nonsense.

The key for the home cook is to invest in some decent equipment.  A couple of good non stick pans will change your life (if your life, like mine, is quite small and quiet, and kitchenware excites you).  We bought ours a few years ago from M&S - a little pricey but worth their weight in...well, gold.  The point is, often a recipe calls for a lot of oil at the beginning just to stop food sticking to the pan.  It seems a bit of a waste to add something that is not going to contribute particularly to my enjoyment of a dish but just save a bit of time washing up.

Another tip is to buy yourself a silicon brush - this is something I picked up from watching Andrew Pern work during a Star Inn cookery course last year.  A brush will ensure that whatever fat you have added to the pan - even if it is just a scant teaspoon - can be quickly and evenly dispersed across the whole surface.  I use mine a lot for this very purpose.

When cooking foods with a high fat content of their own - streaky bacon and chorizo are two examples which immediately spring to mind - you can often get away with not adding any additional fat for cooking purposes.  Keep the heat low to start with, which will allow the fat in the item itself to render out.  I never cook bacon in oil - which makes me sound a bit puritanical -  but I just don't see the need.  The bacon will cook quite happily in its own fat as long as you start it off slowly.  And if I'm cooking something alongside said bacon - for example, an onion, I will cook the onion in the bacon fat as well.  Just make sure you do your meat first and that should provide you with sufficient lubrication.  And I'm sorry for using the word lubrication in a piece about cooking.  Those of you with a prurient mindset are allowed to leave the room for a giggle.

I suppose the point I am trying to make is, when you're following a diet plan, every little calorie or point or syn is precious.  But, equally, fat can be an important - even crucial - component of a dish and we shouldn't be afraid of it.  We just have to work out where it will actually contribute an element of pleasure to the food that we are eating - that's the bottom line, isn't it?  Enjoying what we are eating?

Personally, I like tuna...