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It's not often a recipe wants you to select an ingredient that won't add flavour to your dish, but when it calls for a 'neutral oil', that's exactly what's happening.
A neutral oil is one that is so bland that it simply cooks the other ingredients and doesn't add additional flavour of its own. Other oils or fats can be an integral part of a recipe's final taste, a neutral oil stays out of things.
"We generally use grape seed oil where a neutral oil is required," chef Nicholas Hill tells SBS Food. This is compared to the restaurant's use of olive oil, butter and pork fat on other occasions.
"We use a lot of olive oil for cooking in the warmer months and tend to favour butter and pork fat in the winter when cooking heartier dishes," says Hill.
Nobody could ever accuse pork lard or olive oil as being 'neutral' in flavour - not even when it's organic cold-pressed, extra-virgin. Which is why an oil like grapeseed oil comes out to play when a delicate dish is on order.
For instance, unless you're making Shane Delia's, you wouldn't want to use a robust oil like olive in your cake making. Your grandmother's sponge is collapsing at the mere thought.
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Unless an ingredient like olive oil forms part of a cake's flavour, it's best to use a neutral oil for baking instead. Source: Adam Liaw
You can generally tell when you've picked up a neutral oils like the grapeseed oil Hill uses at Porcine because it won't have any smell. This is just as important to a recipe as flavour, because a non-neutral oil will generally change the aroma of your cooking. So, oils like coconut oil, sesame oil, ghee and most lard are off the table straightaway. The pongier the oil, the more flavour it's going to add to your dish.
For food queen , there's no such thing as a non-neutral oil and it's just a degree of how strong the olive oil needs to be.
"I am happy to say that I use only extra-virgin olive oil for 99% of my cooking," she says. "I use robust and more mellow extra-virgin olive oil, too. The more mellow [variety] is for adding to the robust half-and-half for mayonnaise."
If even the most delicate olive oil is too much flavour for you, here's a rundown of the best neutral oils to use in your cooking.
Grapeseed
Hill's neutral oil of choice, grapeseed oil is often considered king of the neutral oil camp. That's because it is very delicate in the trifecta of colour, flavour and aroma. The oil is extracted from the leftover grape seeds after grapes have been pressed for wine, so it's generally considered a sustainable choice.
To truly be sustainable, it's important to note how the oil has been processed. Most commercially available grapeseed oil is extracted using chemical solvents like hexane. Instead, be sure to buy cold-pressed or expeller-pressed grapeseed oil.
Vegetable
The ubiquitous vegetable oil has been on Australian shelves for generations. It's made using a blend of different vegetable oils (sunflower, canola, corn, soy, safflower, etc) and is truly neutral in flavour.
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Adam Liaw uses vegetable oil as the neutral base for his spring onion oil finish to steamed chicken breasts. Source: Adam Liaw
The biggest problem with vegetable oil is that you never quite know exactly what's in the oil you're using. Manufacturers can essentially sub in any plant-based oil they like. This can also make it hard to correctly estimate the smoke point of vegetable oil, although you can generally assume that it is very high.
Two of the more popular 'single plant' vegetable oils are:
Canola
Canola is one of the most popular types of vegetable oils for good reason. It has a high smoke point and is considered a healthy choice for cooking, being low in saturated fat and high in monounsaturated fat. The main problem with using this neutral oil is that is most likely to be chemically extracted using hexane. 'Cold-pressed' canola is hard to find and very expensive.
Sunflower
High-oleic sunflower oil is the kind you are most likely to find on the grocery store shelf. The monosaturated fats it contains are good for heart health and reducing inflammation. That said, sunflower oil generates more aldehydes (which may increase the risk of cancer) than other oils, so it's best to use it for low-heat cooking only.
Avocado
Despite being expensive, avocado oil is growing in popularity for cooking due to its higher smoke point than other unrefined oils like olive oil. Unlike olive oil, it's also neutral in flavour and aroma, but it can add an interesting 'creaminess' to dishes. So if texture is important in your recipe (we're looking at you, sponge cake), it's best to select a different neutral oil.
Rice bran
Rice bran oil is extracted from the germ of rice grains. It has no flavour or smell, which makes it an excellent neutral oil option. You can use it for any kind of cooking, including stir-frying over high heat, roasting, baking and grilling. Rice bran oil is known to be a key ingredient in a good tempura.
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Rice bran oil brings the necessary crisp to a delicate tempura batter. Source: Sharyn Cairns
Peanut
Peanut oil has the barest hint of peanut flavour and smell, but once it's used in cooking it becomes completely neutral. It's the neutral oil of choice in many Asian recipes because it can take cooking at a very high heat. Plus it's relatively sustainable and definitely cheap enough to use in your everyday dishes. Of course, if you've got a diner with a nut allergy, this one is a definite no-go.
Flaxseed
Flaxseed oil is bursting with omega-3s, but that means it has a super low smoke point. Store this one in the refrigerator and use it for salad dressings and homemade skincare.
Walnut and other nut oils
Another neutral-flavoured oil with a very low smoke point, walnut oil is best used only to finish a dish. Other nut oils that fall into this category are almond, macadamia and almond oils.
Beer mentions that she used to use grape seed oil (presumably before olive oil stole her heart completely), and eschew the use of any seed oils, but that she does love a good nut oil.
"These are best kept in the fridge and I am careful when choosing them," she says. "I love walnut, hazelnut and almond oils."
Most nut oils are perfect to add to salad dressings or to drizzle over stir-fried vegetables after cooking for shine and texture. Walnut oil also removes scratches from your wooden table like a champ, but that might be a story for another day.
Oil have one of these
Shane Delia reveals the many ways he uses olive oil
