The Good Press
Genevieve McGough
The goddess Athena gifted the olive tree to the people of Athens, a dove carried the olive branch to Noah, and olive oil is credited with the unusually low rates of heart disease found throughout the Mediterranean. It even tastes great.
Olive oil is everywhere. New Zealand brands win international awards, and while the supermarket shelves are full of relatively cheap imported brands, the delis and specialist food shops sell very much more expensive lines – both local and imported. Nor is olive the only oil to make a splash. Nuts, seeds, avocados and other foods all give up their oil for gourmet cooking.
So how do you choose which oil to use for what purpose? How do you look after and get the best from your gourmet oils? Are some oils tastier, healthier or more suitable for cooking with than others?
Olive oil comes in two main styles: pure and extra virgin. The International Olive Oil Council’s (IOOC) definition of the latter is: “Oily juice from olives picked at the optimum time from a healthy tree and processed mechanically without the addition of heat or chemicals.” Beyond this, extra virgin olive oil has a wide variety of tastes due to differences in climate, soil and olive variety – there are more than 60 varieties of olive grown for oil production.
Extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) can be extracted by either centrifugal force or hydraulic pressure. There is very little difference in oil quality, provided these operations are carried out properly.
To be extra virgin, the oil must have an acidity content of no more than 0.8 per cent.
It may also be assessed by an IOOC-trained sensory panel to ensure it does not have any of the flavour faults (there are five main ones) that commonly arise from poor processing methods.
PURE OLIVE OIL
Pure olive oil, by comparison, has almost no flavour of its own. Most of the taste comes from a small amount of EVOO added before bottling.
Pure olive oil is refined, which means it is extracted (usually under heat) and put through various chemical processes to remove unwanted flavours, impurities and toxins.
Refined oils are usually colourless and odourless, so colour and flavour have to be added back. In the case of pure olive oil, a small amount of extra virgin oil, or perhaps hazelnut or another oil, will be used. It’s not quite as “pure” as you might think!
THE DIFFERENT TYPES OF FLAVOUR
Extra virgin olive oil has a much fuller taste than pure oil but both are classed in three styles: delicate, medium and intense. The general rule is, the tastier the food, the tastier the accompanying oil should be.
Delicate oils will complement a green-leaf salad and other subtly flavoured foods, such as steamed vegetables or chicken. The medium oils are better for pasta, sautés and drizzling on vegetables. Intense olive oils are great drizzled over barbecued meat.
Medium and intense oils are also best for dipping, when you want to focus on the big flavour hit from the oil.
Other flavourings, such as lemon juice and balsamic vinegar, should be used sparingly with a good oil.
The greener the better? Well, no. I asked Jacqui Dixon of Sabato about the variations in colour. Her shop imports many gourmet oils, and she says: “The brightness of the green is not a factor in quality with any olive oil, because olive leaves can be crushed with the olives to make it greener.”
Watch out for an attractively packaged version of olive oil on the market called pomace oil. Pomace is not a gourmet product – it’s what’s left of the olives when they have had all the oil pressed out of them.
Chemical solvents are used on the pomace to extract what pressing could not and the residual oil is then refined. Pomace oil may contain some pure olive oil to make it a little tastier, but don’t be fooled.
 NEW ZEALAND OILS
New Zealand growers generally choose not to compete in the mass market, so 
Photography by Nigel Gardiner
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