Coconut Oil

Coconut oil, my friend, is a fat that changes shape with the weather, and it is not alone in this — butter and lard do the same. In a cool room it turns hard and white, like tallow. Warm it in your palm, and it melts into a clear liquid. That is not spoilage, that is simply its nature. Keep a jar on the shelf, and it does not turn rancid quickly and sits quietly for months. When it finally does go off, though, you will know — it turns sour and sharp, like any old fat.

Choose it by smell, but know what you are choosing. Virgin coconut oil smells of coconut, warm and sweet. Refined coconut oil is meant to smell of nothing at all — that is not a fault, that is its purpose, for cooking where you want no coconut flavour. Colour should be clean white when solid, glass-clear when melted — no yellow, no cloudiness.

Now, some people say solid fat means it is spoiled or hydrogenated. No! Solid is its honest, natural state in a cold kitchen — I have seen it turn hard in my own kitchen on a winter morning, and soft again by afternoon. Believing otherwise, cooks throw away good oil or melt it needlessly before every use — a small waste, but a waste all the same.