Hi,
When I fry potatoes or meats on stove top using a 100% vegatable oil I
get a fish like odor and slight taste as well. Why might this be?Should
I use another type of oil?? it's not my pans i do not think as I never
use them for fish but they are aluminum with teflon or other coating on
them. Even brand new oil, freshly opened does this as well
Thanks In advance

Bill

On 21 Aug 2005 10:08:33 -0700, wrote:

> Hi,
> When I fry potatoes or meats on stove top using a 100% vegatable oil I
> get a fish like odor and slight taste as well. Why might this be?Should
> I use another type of oil?? it's not my pans i do not think as I never
> use them for fish but they are aluminum with teflon or other coating on
> them. Even brand new oil, freshly opened does this as well
> Thanks In advance
>
I'm not a vegetable oil fan. Try corn, canola or peanut oil and you
won't look back.

wrote:

> Hi,
> When I fry potatoes or meats on stove top using a 100% vegatable oil I
> get a fish like odor and slight taste as well. Why might this be?Should
> I use another type of oil?? it's not my pans i do not think as I never
> use them for fish but they are aluminum with teflon or other coating on
> them. Even brand new oil, freshly opened does this as well
> Thanks In advance
>
> Bill
>
Was the pan ever used for frying fish?

> wrote in message
oups.com...
> Hi,
> When I fry potatoes or meats on stove top using a 100% vegatable oil I
> get a fish like odor and slight taste as well. Why might this be?Should
> I use another type of oil?? it's not my pans i do not think as I never
> use them for fish but they are aluminum with teflon or other coating on
> them. Even brand new oil, freshly opened does this as well
> Thanks In advance
>
> Bill
>


I have never had this with fresh oil but I have with stale oil that has had
few things in it and isn't too clean. It's caused by the breakdown products
that stay in the oil when you re-use it.

David

at Sun, 21 Aug 2005 17:08:33 GMT in <1124644113.187148.294540
@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>, wrote :

>Hi,
>When I fry potatoes or meats on stove top using a 100% vegatable oil I
>get a fish like odor and slight taste as well. Why might this be?

Probably low-grade soy oil which can develop a slightly fishy flavour.
There are better fats for frying these items. For potatoes, I like goose
fat, at least for stovetop frying. If I were deep-frying, OTOH, I'd use
something like beef tallow or lard. For meats, I find olive oil works best,
and I don't have any issues about using a high-quality extra-virgin for
this purpose. You do have to be careful about temperature, however - don't
use olive oil if frying extra-hot. In that case, generally the best fat is
lard.

If I were a vegetarian, I'd probably stick with something like high-oleic
sunflower oil. Generally that's pretty stable for frying, although you do
have to specify the high-oleic variety. At very high temperatures, e.g.
deep frying, coconut oil would be the best choice. However it must be said
that coconut oil lends a slight coconutty flavour as well.


--
Alex Rast

(remove d., .7, not, and .NOSPAM to reply)

Sorry to dig up an old thread. My daughter mentioned this to me today, and I have also wondered about what appears to be the sale of possibly "contaminated" or "recycled" vegetable oil.

None of the answers posted here seemed to make a case for themselves, and were even self-contradicting.

I have a rather plausible explanation for the fish smell in vegetable oils.

In our modern world of commodities for the masses, vegetable oil is vegetable oil. Deli's and restaurants that use deep-frying equipment do a "boil out" on a regular basis where chemicals are dumped into the hot oils, and the suspended particulates drop out. The oil looks and smells fresh if you have done your job well. You may continue deep-frying.
Let's take vegetable oil up another notch- where large corporations use it to prepare processed food products. Hundreds of thousands of gallons of this oil are used on a daily basis. In order to get the most out of the oil, I am sure (but I am guessing) that boil outs are done at this scale, as well. At any rate- eventually the oil is unfit for the product being produced-and probably goes through even more processing before being "recycled" as vegetable oil. This may serve the bottom line well, but the consumers get the short end of the stick.

Just my .02

glowing