Hi! I'm Spanish and my entire life my food has been fried with olive oil(or sunflower oil) and I was shocked when a Dutch guy told me that food tasted very sour when using olive oil and that with butter it tasted better like milder and softer. People that have tried both, which one is best? Thank u!
30 comments
It’s hard to describe the exact taste but it just makes the taste of some dishes more pleasant. Your sense of taste reacts differently to saturated fats like butter and other animal fats compared to unsaturated fats like olive oil. This doesn’t mean that butter is always the best option though. In the end it mostly depends on personal taste and the dish you’re making.
It’s hard to describe. Why don’t you try it out for yourself? 😊
Why not just try it? Even if it isnt the go to in your country, i’m sure you have some butter. Or can at least buy it for like 1 euro in the nearest store.
For cooking I generally seed oil or animal fat, they can be used at high temperatures without changing the flavour, I find olive oil gets bitter tasting when cooked at high temperature.
For salad dressings, dipping bread or drizzling on food etc. I’d use olive oil.
Try to make scrambled eggs with butter instead of oil, you will notice also the different texture it creates.
There’s no obvious response to which is better or worse. It depends on the dish, or just what you prefer that particular day. I really like cooking with butter for some dishes indeed. I’d say if you want to give it a try, choose something very straightforward, like sautéing mushrooms or onion, or a beef steak. Butter is also way better than olive oil for scrambled eggs, no question about it.
As someone who lived in France for a while: take your boiled potatoes, peel them, cut them in two and fry them in some butter on medium heat for 10 minutes
You’ll have your answer
(I cook most days with sunflower oil and use olive oil for seasoning but sometimes butter is superior)
It tastes mild, slightly of cake. Milk mellows sharp flavors. Neither oil should make food sour. Butter can be sour, which is sometimes called European style, which is like sour milk/cream, but butter can also be of fresh cream, and not sour at all. Be aware of the two choices. You have to manage the heat carefully when using butter on a pan. Try with scrambled eggs.
Ohhhh my man you’re missing out. Scrambled eggs for one get so soft and silky if you use butter to cook them, the flavor is deeper and even more “eggy” in a way?
Definitely try butter.
I don’t think food is supposed to taste sour with olive oil, he might have been using something that doesn’t do well with high temperatures. Some kinds of olive oils are made for salad, not for the wok…
I personally use butter for things like crêpes and eggs, olive oil for Mediterranean dishes, sesame oil for Chinese and Vietnamese dishes. It’s honestly a matter of taste and of what feels coherent with the dish.
Butter tastes slightly nutty, it’s a fantastic flavor enhancer but burns at a way lower temp so you can’t use it to fry stuff like you do with olive oil because burnt butter does not taste pleasant.
I personally use both depending on what I need.
Olive oil to oil a pan I know I will use with high temp and butter if I know I will not go beyond mid temp or to add toward the end of the dish for added flavor.
You can also use clarified butter to get the better of both worlds since it has a much higher burning point and can last much longer too.
Why don’t you try it out yourself? It is definitely different. Some dishes call for butter, some for olive oil, some for a more neutral oil. Oil is definitely the healthier option, though.
Butter trumps oil every time when it comes to cooking. Especially Irish butter. I may be biased, but experts agree 🙂
[https://www.tastingtable.com/1523667/facts-irish-butter-explained/](https://www.tastingtable.com/1523667/facts-irish-butter-explained/)
Depends.
I’m from a Mediterranean country, and there’s only two dishes I prefer with butter. Fried egg and Turkey breasts.
Everything else just tastes better with olive oil, but you need a good olive oil, extracted from mechanical processes. In my experience, olive oil tastes sour when mixed with stuff that shouldn’t be in an olive oil.
Hard to describe but butter is rounder, sweeter, mellower and richer.
Olive oil is a bit acidic, a touch bitter (depending on how processed it is), grassy and even a bit spicy or peppery.
Ultimately neither is best, they each give food a particular flavour.
For example I cannot for the love of me, fry an egg without olive oil. I’d sooner die. But I do poach onions with butter sometimes and I wouldn’t make a roux with olive oil.
Oh btw, this is just the tip of iceberg, many cuisines have “foundational” oils. Basically a particular oil used to cook which as such gives a particular flavor to almost all dishes. Spanish cuisine has olive oil, French cuisine has butter, north Indian cuisine has ghee (clarified butter), Thai cuisine has coconut oil, sichuanese cuisine has mustard oil, etc.
I think it differs from person to person.
I don’t like the smell of hot butter. Some people would die for butter on a pan.
I’m from Finland and I basically never use olive oil. I usually use rapeseed oil and sometimes butter. This post reminded me that I once tried to make popcorn with olive oil, because it was the only oil I had. Big mistake. The popcorn tasted awful. Haha.
Personally I much prefer cooking with vegetable margarine over anything else. It’s easy to use, doesn’t burn easily, leaves a nice color, and has a rather neutral, slightly creamy taste. Olive oil has a too dominant and distinct taste for me to use for frying, and I’m not really a big fan of it. Also, at least in Sweden olive oil is way, way more expensive – but perhaps that’s different in Mediterranean countries.
This is one of the things I love about visiting Spain. It’s so much easier to find food without dairy (my kids are allergic) because most things are prepared with oil.
I mean, you have butter in Spain… Just try it.
But do it properly, it has to be real no bullcrap 100% butter, like the one used for baking. Not the ones meant to be spread on sandwiches. And definitely not the fake butters like margarine.
If you can take it straight out of a fridge and spread it without destroying your sandwich… then that’s not it.
Olive oil can give a “bitter” taste and it also looses all it’s healthy bits if it is heated to much (above 210C).
So it works for frying an egg or something on medium settings on the stove but it is garbage if you intend to deep fry or overheat it.
My lazy go to is a premixed frying butter that is butter and oil (usually rape-seed oil). It’s not as tasty as 100% butter but much better than oil imo, and it’s also a lot more convenient and easily applied like oil. Especially when you are making a million Swedish pancakes for the kids in two pans at once. So, it’s a good compromise.
I very rarely fry anything in only oil (not counting deep fry). I either apply olive oil on top of f ex potatoes or veggies going in, or after they’ve baked in the oven or mixed with vinegar and salt on a sallad.
Depends on what your frying and how hot the butter is. Frying with butter requires a little skill to be tasty
I prefer olive oil but butter is good for certain things. It browns things better and gives a rounder, fuller, and heavier taste. For example if I fry fish fillets rolled in flour on a pan I usually use butter. Clarified butter is also really good for Indian cooking.
But for most things I reach for the olive oil. It’s better for your health too.
Small test , 2 pieces filet mignon (best piece from filete de lomo) prepare one in oil the other in real unsalted butter and taste
As a Dutch guy I bet you 10 euros that Dutch guy used magerine (plant based fake butter with artificial flavoring) and not real butter.
You should cook and fry stuff in oil, lard or butter depending on the food. Butter is great if you want to give things a more smooth, tiny bit sweeter taste like eggs for example. Try it.
I use it mostly for scrambled eggs. It has a much nicer texture and flavour.
Raw. I tried it, but I think cooking with gas is much more efficient.
It really depends. In France we use both depending on the region. South is olive oil and north is butter, but we can combine (and add creme fraîche in case it’s still too dry).
Local cuisine traditions try to make the best of their base ingredients. Normandy for example: fresh trout fillets fried in butter with roasted flaked almonds and boiled potatoes with creme fraîche and parsley. Add some lemon juice.
Depends on the butter, if it’s a spread it’s no good. That’s oil and chemicals. Try some salted kerrygold or if you’re stuck President.
Eggs. Fried eggs. Absolutely dreadful with any oil compared to butter. This experience usually only takes place when in vacation in Italy or Spain. Horrible
In local traditional Cuisine there are no recipes which work better using oil. …. obviously