We grew up on fresh pressed mustard oil in all sorts of dishes. In the US though, mustard oil is banned as a cooking oil or for edible purposes. If you check your mustard oil bottle, it will surely say for “External Use Only”
We have stopped using it - or use it very sparingly.
I was on a kick for a long time where I used EVOO as my all-purpose oil because I liked its taste, but I eventually learned more about smoke points and understood that some dishes I cooked, EVOO’s lower smoke point was causing me issues. I now use a simple corn oil if I need oil for a dish where smoke point is a factor in the cooking.
EVOO I use for most dishes where it isn’t.
I use butter for eggs and a few other things, sometimes I use butter to baste while using an oil on the skillet as well (I am not a particularly low fat cook.)
Peanut oil I keep around because the rare times I deep fry something, I have found I like it for deep frying–homemade french fries, fried shrimp etc I’ve found good results with peanut oil, but despite my general lack of being dietary fat conscious, home deep frying is a tad beyond the level of fatty I like in my regular meals.
Sesame oil I keep around for like one Asian inspired recipe I cook sometimes that specifically calls for it.
Yep, I am aware. It does say that.
Extra virgin olive oil: I’m of the belief (may be unfounded) that most of the flavor attributes of EVOO will boil away during frying, so it adds little flavor to the fried food. It won’t do anything bad, but it is more expensive than other oils so it adds little other than cost.
Peanut oil: I think people with peanut allergies have no problems with refined peanut oil. It is the protein in the peanut that triggers the allergy, and refined peanut oil has no protein. That said, if I had a peanut allergy, I would probably avoid peanut oil.
I keep peanut and olive for general purposes, along with a small bottle of sesame for Asian dishes. That’s pretty much it (though cold-pressed safflower makes a really nice salad dressing, so I will get some every once in a great while).
This leaves more room for my vinegar collection, lol.
Yes, you can ignore that.
I use mustard oil for all kinds of steamed vegetables, and roasted corn. It’s delicious. and it practically never goes rancid.
Acsenray - we have done that but since our kid was born (now a teenager) we were admonished by her doctor to not use it. Something to do with heart risks.
Anyways, my favorite mustard preparation is Kasundi - Wikipedia followed by potatoes + poppy seeds cooked in mustard oil.
I was curious so I googled:
The United States Food and Drug administration’s website claims it has erucic acid, which can cause heart disease if consumed above the prescribed limits .
There is a product called Colman’s Mustard; it is British but I am pretty sure it is legal in the USA 
. It’s a dry powder containing white and yellow mustard that you can add to your dishes to make them taste like mustard.
I grew up with powdered Colman’s. We didn’t use it a lot, but we used it.
Mustard oil isn’t banned everywhere in the US.
You may be right, but I don’t want to inadvertently poison a friend. It’s not that hard to sub in safflower oil, or whatever is easy to pick up.
If we are talking about ALL the edible oils/fats we use, not just the main cooking oils, I also have:
duck fat
goose fat
toasted sesame oil
grape seed oil
a couple different types of olive oil
palm oil as shortening
coconut fat to melt into chocolate, for dipping
(in addition to peanut oil, olive oil, and butter, as mentioned above. Oh, and right now, some soy oil I got when I was cooking for company.)
and I’m probably missing something.
Same. Also, unless you do it all the time, you have leftover oil that can’t really be easily re-used, and disposing of a quart of oil is a nuisance. I eat lots of fat. But I don’t cook deep fried. That’s something for restaurants with fryolators to deal with, imo.
I use it for many purposes. One thing I picked up from a recipe is to use it cooked in some ghee as a substitute for mustard oil in Indian dishes. I do not think I’ve ever had genuine mustard oil so can’t say how good a substitute it is.
The duck and goose fat when I have it. Some company had duck products at the grocery store for a while so I could get a tub of fat. Sesame oil is a necessary flavor.
And then I use plenty of butter, bacon fat, and lard sometimes.
They taste quite different. (ETA: ghee vs mustard oil.)
I use an olive oil / veggie oil blend for ‘all purpose’ pan cooking. I use EVOO only for dressing / serving / dipping. I use sesame oil as an accent flavor for most Asian style dishes. Otherwise, I’ll use vegetable / canola / safflower / sunflower oil for a neutral option in baking or higher temp cooking options, including deep-pan frying.
I’d use peanut, but it’s too spendy to justify for the very limited frying I do.
I make ghee on rare occasions I need it, duck fat after I’ve cooked a duck (sadly not often enough), and bacon fat back when I had left overs from cooking, but now that it’s steak price, that doesn’t happen much.
I should find out. I don’t need to consume a ton of it to try it out. Nor does it sound all that dangerous.
I think you should be fine. I see It in some South Asian kitchens and I have some in my cupboard. I don’t use it that often, but I do use it culinarily. It’s got a very clear brassica kick to it. It’s a bit like the difference between cooking with cream and with mustard.
I cook duck from time to time, and goose midwinter. I save the fat in my fridge. It lasts for several months. I like them for potatoes, veggies, and popcorn.
I was also curious; it seems the original studies may not have been as rigorous as they should have been. Further reading suggested that rats (which were used in the study) seem to be fairly uncommon in the mammalian world in the inability to properly process the erucic acid in mustard (and rapeseed) oil.
Oh, thank you so much!
I have to avoid peanut oil due to allergies, but subsituting can be a problem because not all oils have a similar high smoke point. Now I have alternatives I can use. Thank you!
Safflowers and sunflowers are cousins of a sort, but no, they’re not the same plant. These days safflower is used mainly for oil, but it used to also be used for dye. Safflower oil has a higher smoke point than sunflower oil, and in fact safflower oil has a higher smoke point than peanut oil so I expect it would be good for frying of any sort.
Sunflowers are still used for both oil and seeds but so far as I know they have no use for making dyestuff. They can, though, be used in bioremediation and in fact were used in the Chernobyl exclusion zone to help remove strontium-90 and cesium- 137 from contaminated areas (obviously, you don’t eat the plants doing this). Sunflower oil is considered to have a high smoke point, but not as high as safflower.
There is an issue for folks with allergies, at least some of the time. People with, say, a corn allergy can react badly to corn oil. Ditto for folks with soybean allergies. And so on. So labeling is important but probably for the average person they’re largely interchangeable.
I live in dread of people who don’t know to ask or who won’t realize oil origin might be significant or who will get annoyed if I ask to read the labels on the ingredients they’re using.
I wound up in the hospital with anaphylactic shock that one time due to that sort of thing - but then, if I’m invited to someone’s house I usually let them know that cooking for Broomstick had some issues.
I beg to differ. I’ve had some awesome skin rashes after eating food cooked in peanut oil. Admittedly, other times not so much. I expect the quality of the production/refinement process is a significant factor but that’s not something you can tell from the bottle or what’s inside.
I would certainly avoid using oil X with anyone with an allergy to X.
My current line up of cooking oils (in no particular order) are soy, olive, sesame, butter, lard, and schmaltz. Almost scored some venison fat this year, but I was happy to have the steaks and ground deer. Might still have some lamb tallow in the freezer, too.
Well, you will have to take the initiative, and tell me what you are allergic to, but I promise to be scrupulously careful in avoiding those things if I ever cook for you. I pride myself in being able to cook for people with assorted dietary requirements: religious, medical, and just preferences. And I’m quite happy to have you check the ingredients. In fact, when I have friends whom I know have a lot of dietary issues coming over, I make sure to save the labels of anything processed, in case they want to check.