Qualifying Your Olive Oil
We’ve spoken already about not treating Olive Oil like Wine in terms of “saving it for that special day”. Olive Oil does not get better with age.
When it comes to our taste buds though, we can definitely treat Olive Oil like wine and it makes for a really interesting tasting session. You can distinguish a good Olive Oil by it’s palate and nose, however the colour of an oil has nothing to do with the quality of the oil.
In fact, at Wilson’s Foods, we taste every single batch that comes in so that we can decide how we will be using the oil. If an oil shows any kind of defectiveness, we won’t sell it. This very simple step has helped us to achieve consistent year-on-year quality.
There are 3 main points we look out for:
Straightforward notes (ie not complex; ripeness of input olives should not vary too much)
Freshness (should smell like a newly-cut lawn)
Robustness
You can tell a lot from just tasting olive oil, such as whether or not there was mould on the olives (fermented), if the olives were cleaned properly (earthy), if the olives were dried out or frozen (hay/woody), musty/damp/stuffy (the olives were left too long after harvesting)
The things you want to taste are Fruity (grassy, herbaceous, floral, buttery), Bitter (acrid taste on your tongue) and Pungent (peppery/spicy aftertaste).
Interested in doing your own Olive Oil Tasting? Follow our easy step guide!
Chilli Con Carne
Ingredients 2 teaspoons Wilson’s Extra Virgin Olive Oil 125g rindless bacon, roughly chopped 750g Extra Lean Beef Mince 2 medium brown onions, finely chopped 2
Mulligatawny Soup
Ingredients 2 tablespoons Wilson’s Butter Flavoured Oil 1 tablespoon Wilson’s Extra Virgin Olive Oil 1 large onion, chopped (2 cups) 2 ribs celery, chopped (1
Greek Lamb Chops
Ingredients: 1/4 cup Wilson’s Extra Virgin Olive Oil plus 1 tablespoon for cooking Juice of 1 lemon (about 1/4 cup lemon juice) 2 teaspoons of
Shepard’s Pie
Ingredients Meat Filling: 2 tablespoons of Wilson’s Extra Virgin Olive Oil 1 cup chopped yellow onion 500g 90% lean ground beef or ground lamb 2
Chicken Broccoli Bake
Chicken Broccoli Bake Ingredients 1 tablespoon Wilson’s Extra Virgin Olive Oil 1 cup small yellow onion, chopped 2 cloves garlic, minced 500g, boneless, skinless
Snoek on the Braai
Snoek on the Braai Ingredients: 800g snoek 2 tablespoons chilli flakes 1 teaspoon fresh ginger, minced 5 garlic cloves, minced 2 tablespoons soya sauce