Choosing a cooking oil for everyday use

Most kitchens need two oils, not six. One that takes heat, and one you finish a dish with.

The number that matters for the first is the smoke point: the temperature at which an oil starts to break down, smell acrid and taste bitter. Sunflower oil sits around 225C, which comfortably covers frying, roasting and searing. Extra virgin olive oil sits far lower, nearer 190C, which is why it behaves badly in a hot pan and beautifully over a salad.

For everyday cooking in a UAE household, refined sunflower oil is usually the sensible default. It is neutral, it is stable at heat, and bought in a 3 litre bottle it costs a fraction per litre of what a 750 ml bottle does.

Buy the big bottle, but decant into a smaller one for daily use and keep the rest closed and dark. Oil goes rancid through contact with air, light and heat, in that order. A bottle left open beside the cooker will turn within weeks; the same oil sealed in a cupboard lasts the best part of a year.

You can tell rancid oil by smell before you can taste it. It goes flat and slightly like crayons. It will not make you ill, but it will make everything cooked in it taste tired, and no amount of seasoning covers it.

On reusing frying oil: it is fine once or twice for the same kind of food, provided you strain it while it is warm and store it sealed. Discard it when it darkens, thickens, or foams around the edges when heated. Never pour it down the sink; let it cool, seal it in the bottle it came from, and put it in the bin.

If you are buying for a kitchen rather than a household, work out your cost per litre rather than per bottle, and check how quickly you actually get through it. Oil bought at a good price and used slowly is not a saving.