1,542 easy and fully explained recipes, with +66K photos and 78 videos

This site uses only a few technical cookies necessary for its operation. By continuing to browse, you accept their use.
To find out more...

Preservative oil, an asset for taste

When you prepare a dish using an ingredient that has been preserved in fat, for example a springtime mixed salad with tuna in oil or sun-dried tomatoes, you're probably going to make a french dressing (vinaigrette) next.

In that case, why not use the preserved oil from the tuna or tomatoes?

7,731 5/5 (14 reviews)

Keywords for this post:Sauce Oil Taste recovery Economical Fat Storage

Last modified on: June 5^th 2024

For this post: Comment Follow Ask me a question Send to a friend

Preservative oil, an asset for taste

It's not easy, or rather it's not something you think about very much, but it's a shame to throw away the oil used to preserve tuna or tomatoes, because it's naturally perfumed with whatever's been preserved in it.
And this taste, these aromas, will then be transmitted to your future preparations.

To take the example of the tuna in oil and the vinaigrette sauce for the salad, you proceed as usual for your salad, but when you add the tuna you collect the oil in a bowl or small jar.
Add vinegar, mustard, salt and pepper, mix well and your tuna-flavoured dressing is ready.

vinaigrette au thon

Just about anything that can be preserved in oil (fish, vegetables, cheese, etc.) can be used in this way, not just in a sauce, but as a cooking fat, for example.
Grill tomatoes in a little rosemary oil with cubes of feta cheese, for example, and you'll be amazed at the results.

feta huile et romarinn

So far, we've only talked about oil, but this applies to virtually all preservative fats.
In the same spirit, another example: roast potatoes in a little rillettes fat, and enjoy the resulting taste, in addition to the crispness of the roasted potatoes.

To sum up: don't necessarily throw away the fat used to preserve your food - it can often be used to accompany a recipe, or in cooking.

Lasts posts

Butter vs. grease

We often read in a recipe where a pastry is put into a mould that, just before pouring, the mould should be buttered or greased. But what's the difference between these 2 terms?
December 1^st 20251,3205

Getting out of the fridge early

Very often when you're cooking, you need to take food or preparations out of the fridge, to use them in the recipe in progress. There's nothing tricky about this: you just take them out of the fridge and use them, usually immediately, in the recipe. But is this really a good method?
November 24^th 20251,2535

Who's making the croissants?

When you look at a bakery from the outside, you naturally think that in the bakery, the bakers make the bread, and in the laboratory, the pastry chefs make the cakes. It's very often like that, with each of these professions having quite different ways of working, but sometimes there's also one...
November 23^th 20251,132

Oven height

When we put a dish or cake in the oven, we naturally tend to put it on the middle shelf, and that's what we usually do. But in some cases, this position and height can be a little tricky, so let's find out why.
October 8^th 20253,1265

The importance of sieving

In recipes that use a fine powder (flour, powdered sugar, etc.), you'll often see the advice to sift before using it. To sift is to pass the powder in question through a sieve (a very fine strainer) before incorporating it into your recipe. It's often advice, but is it really useful?
September 3^rd 20257,7973

See all posts Random post RSS feeds

Other pages you may also like

How to zest a fruit?

You will have no doubt noticed that many recipes call for the zest of citrus fruit. The zest is that outer layer of the skin which adds so much flavour to a dish. There are many different ways to peel off the zest and various tools are available. Here is a summary of the “dos and don'ts” of...
November 5^th 201347 K3.8

Tranché, dissociated, failed, in short... missed!

When preparing a sauce or a cream, there's always a (small) risk that the creamy preparation you're working on will suddenly separate into two parts of different textures: a liquid part, for example, and a more or less solid part, or even become lumpy. It's terribly frustrating, but we'll see...
June 19^th 202313 K5

The art of the charlotte

In cooking, a charlotte is a delicious moulded dessert, with biscuits around the outside that have been soaked in a flavoured syrup, filled with a light cream or mousse. The charlotte is left to set in the fridge before being turned out and served in slices. It is very light and a lovely sweet...
February 27^th 201346 K4.3

Zester like a pro

Have you heard of the microplane? It's an extraordinary tool that allows you to grate very, very finely, and therefore zest with disconcerting ease. Here's some information about it.
December 25^th 20208,5224.9

The return of the "Norman hole"

You maybe know the "trou normand", this old gastronomic custom typically French which consists in taking a (small) glass of calvados, generally between the last course and the dessert? It's something that seems a bit anachronistic nowadays, having a glass of an alcohol of more than 60° in the...
December 18^th 202115 K4.8