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From: wildbill@ucbvax.ARPA (William J. Laubenheimer)
Newsgroups: net.cooks
Subject: Re: Olive Oil/Wok question
Message-ID: <6156@ucbvax.ARPA>
Date: Thu, 11-Apr-85 04:08:33 EST
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.6156
Posted: Thu Apr 11 04:08:33 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 12-Apr-85 00:01:19 EST
References: <5109@cbscc.UUCP>
Reply-To: wildbill@ucbvax.UUCP (William J. Laubenheimer)
Organization: University of California at Berkeley
Lines: 18
Summary: 

>A small recipe booklet that came with my wok does not recommend using
>olive oil in the wok.  Does any know why?
>
>Corinna Owens

Olive oil is one of the less unsaturated vegetable oils and therefore has
a relatively low smoking point. The temperatures that you want to use in
stir-frying are above this temperature, so using olive oil would impart
an undesirable "burned" taste to the food you are stir-frying.

The oil which I have most commonly seen recommended for Chinese cooking is
peanut oil. Soybean oil (which I use most often) is supposed to be not
far behind. Both of these are relatively unsaturated and can be heated to
stir-frying temperatures without smoking.

                                        Bill Laubenheimer
----------------------------------------UC-Berkeley Computer Science
     ...Killjoy went that-a-way--->     ucbvax!wildbill