Quality olive oil does not come cheap; the good stuff can sometimes cost far more per ounce than your favorite wine. But just because you shelled out a few bucks for a gourmet olive oil doesn't mean you should be miserly with it. Olive oil is a food that's meant to be eaten and enjoyed, and it's a shame to keep it on the shelf like it's some precious elixir. And since olive oil is best when it's fresh, hoarding it can also have a harmful effect on its taste.
Chef Evan Kleiman is the owner of Los Angeles' much-imitated Angeli Caffe, a modern family restaurant serving light, simple and affordable food. She is also the author of several best-selling cookbooks, and is host of "Good Food," heard each Saturday morning at 11am on KCRW 89.9 fm, the second largest NPR station in the country. Here she offers some advice for buying and storing olive oil:
- Use within 3 months.
Instead of holding on to your olive oil, use it up and buy more. Once you open a bottle, try and use it up within three months.
- Keep away from light and heat.
Olive oil should be kept away from light and heat. Store your bottles in a dark cupboard that is well away from the stove.
- Buy it fresh.
Age is not kind to olive oil, so try to buy it at a store that sells a lot of it. If it looks like the bottle has been sitting on the shelf for a decade, don't buy it.
- Look for the production date.
When you're buying premium olive oil, make sure to read the label. Often it will tell you the date of production. The closer you get to the date of harvest the more pungent the oil will be.
- Learn from the label.
The label might also contain other information, like the blend, the geographical location of the estate, and whether or not the olives were hand picked. Reading the labels can be like getting an education in olive oil.
- Just enjoy it.
In Kleiman's opinion, there are few natural foods as purely delicious as olive oil. Just try pouring some over the perfect slice of bread and sink your teeth into it.
For more about olive oil, check out the following websites:
The Olive Oil Source
www.oliveoilsource.com
California Olive Oil Council
www.cooc.com
The European Olive Oil Medical Information Library
europa.eu.int
Olive Tree.cc
www.olivetree.cc
International Olive Oil Council
www.internationaloliveoil.org
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