Topic: Palm Oil - is anyone using it

[JerryM]

i'd seen vegetable ghee loads of times and passed it by until chriswg's recommendation to try it.

i now have tub of Khyber vegetable ghee (it's in a yellow tub).

when i picked it up from the shop it was liquid but in the fridge it's gone soft solid.

the taste took me by surprise - it taste very nice. a sort of butter with extra smoothness. i've used it in base in place of marg and can't tell any difference but i only use a small amount and it's very diluted in the base until it's fried - so no real surprise.

on a side by side i well prefer the veg ghee but early days - going to try it in a few dishes this week.

what really did catch my eye was the ingredients : essentially palm oil.

i've seen lots of palm oil in every asian shop i've visited but the yucky colour has always got me to pass it by.

i'm no longer sure. given how useful mustard oil is could "palm oil" be a long the same lines but for different uses.

hence the post.

[Gazza63]

Hi Jerry, palm oil is the cheapest and most common cooking oil here in Thailand and so I have been using it in my bases and cooking my curries with it for years, it does have a more intense yellow colour than other cooking oils but is just a standard cooking oil and has no really strong taste,  there is also a red palm oil that is used for cooking which has a red colour but I have not come accross it here, is that the oil that you have seen in the shops? 

[JerryM]

ThaiExpat,

the veg ghee sounds much along the lines of the yellow palm oil (beta carotene is the ghee colouring).

it was the red that i've spotted in our shops. there seems too much shelf space for a non seller.

i have now used the base (2 off parker21 CTM) and found no real difference from using marg. i intend to try the ghee in a few more dishes this week.

think i'll have to get a bottle of the red stuff - just out of curiosity.

many thanks.

[loveitspicy]

The red oil is usually not as refined as the other - quite nice to cook with. Manufactured in abundance from Malaysia