Hi friends!
I hope you’re fine in these beautiful fruit trees’ blossom days. The sun shines hotter every day, and I’m sure that your enthusiasm for new experiences is growing up. Did you try the funny recipe of fool-day fish? Amazing, isn’t it?
Today, I will present a product that I’m fond of: olive oil. Olive oil is a wonderful product, a “super food” but not only, as it can be used in cosmetics, medicine, pharmaceutical… Let’s discover it in this first post about it (there will be a second later about its history and its culture).
Composition:
Primarily triglycerides (~ 99%) and secondarily free fatty acids, and an array of lipids such as hydrocarbons, sterols, aliphatic alcohols, tocopherols and pigments. A plethora of phenolic and volatile compounds are also present. Some of these compounds contribute to the unique character of the oil.
Food energy: 880 kcal/100g
Weight: 920g/litre
Boiling point: 299°C
Composition varies with the cultivar (variety), the altitude, the time of harvest, the extraction process.
Extra virgin oil is required to have no more than 0.8% of free acidity and is considered to have favourable flavour characteristics. It’s obtained only by the cold pressure, and only by mechanical means (ie without any chemical product, nor heat).
Benefits:
Potential health benefits. In the USA, the FDA allows producers of olive oil to place the following qualified health claim on product labels: “Limited and not conclusive scientific evidences suggests that eating about 2 tbsp (23g) of olive oil daily may reduce the risk of coronary heart disease due to the mono-unsaturated fat in olive oil. To achieve this possible benefit, olive oil is to replace a similar amount of saturated fat and not increase the overall number of calories consumed in a day.”
In scientific reviews, health claims on olive oil were approved for protection by its polyphenols against oxidation of blood lipids and for maintenance of normal blood LDL-cholesterol levels by replacing saturated fats in the diet with oleic acid. Other meta-analysis concluded that increased consumption of olive oil was associated with reduced risk of all-cause mortality, cardiovascular events and stroke.
Uses:
In the kitchen:
Raw is the best seasoning, on/in the salads, on raw or cooked vegetables, on pastas, rice…
As a basis for condiments as pesto, spicy oil for pizzas…
For frying and cooking.
In the bathroom: as a basis for cosmetics, as moisturising.
Some recipes:
Spicy oil: in a small opaque bottle, plunge a thyme and rosemary sprig, few chillies, and pour olive oil to fill up. Let steep 2 weeks or more, and use on your home-made pizzas, your pastas…
Home-made pesto: you can cook very easily a large sort of pestos, always with an olive oil basis, herbs, dry fruits, and garlic (or not is you don’t enjoy the taste). Try basil and pine nuts, parsley and walnuts, young radish leaves and walnuts, wild garlic and nuts… Mix together in a purée the herbs, the garlic (or not), the dry fruits, then pour in a small container with a lid, add olive oil and toss well. You can use it immediately or let the pot covered by the lid in the fridge for a week. If you don’t finish the container, add a little tap of oil, it will protect the mixture from oxidation and mould.
Lip/body balm: the principle is to have 12% of bee wax for 88% of olive oil. So, for a balm of 50g, you’ll need 6g of bee wax and 44g of oil. In a little pan, put the bee wax to melt very slowly, add the oil and mix until you obtain a homogeneous mixture. Pour in a small and sterilized container in glass, for example, before congealing. This balm is moisturising and protective against coldness, drought, wind… and you can use it for lips, face, body, hands. You can, if you want, add 2 drops of essential oil of lavender (lavendula officinalis) or oylang-ylang to give it a cute smell and some other protective properties.
Cold oil macerate of flowers, plants, seeds, roots… with olive oil or sunflower oil. Oil macerate of climbing ivy (hedera helix; every day care for the figure, as an oil massage to fight against the cellulite, to cicatrise, to soothe rheumatisms’ pains…).
Macerate of ivy leaves:
Pick up the ivy leaves, without the stems, by a sunny day without rain the previous days.
Clean the leaves one to one in a tissue.
In a container of 1 litre sterilized by boiling water, put the leaves until the ¾ of the container, without packing down.
Cover with vegetal oil.
Close the container and shake lightly. All the leaves have to be bathe into oil.
Cover the container with a brow kraft bag, so that the container will warm but the sun won’t damage the oil.
Let macerate for 3 weeks at the sun’s heat, shaking the container once a day. If there’s no sun, let it inside to at least 20°C.
Filter and press the in order to well extract the oil.
Add a drop of vitamin E for 1à ml of oil, and shake.
Put a label on the container with the components: vegetal basis oil, plant, fabrication date and conservation duration (~ 1 year).
Useful links:
In a second post, I will give you some historical details about the olive oil and the culture of olive trees.
If you want to share your tips and recipes to use olive oil, please feel free!
Hello, this is a very uninteresting presentation! I can't believe that I don't know enough about a product that I use almost every day (butter for the rest, probably because I come from Normandy). Thanks for sharing, a pesto for tonight is a great idea!
(By the way, you have to be careful with the "extra virgin" designation. After testing products in supermarkets, the association "60 millions de consommateurs", declares that many of them are not "extra"!).