When cooking, sometimes there is leftover cooking oil, and home cooks can recycle and use this oil for future cooking.
First, prepare some green onions and ginger to eliminate the fishy smell from the old oil. The stronger the odor in the old oil, the more ginger and green onions you will need. You can also add star anise if available.
You can add green onions and ginger to eliminate the fishy smell from old oil.
Next, prepare a tablespoon of cornstarch mixed with 60 ml of water. This solution can absorb some impurities in the old cooking oil. With this amount of solution, you can filter about 240 ml of old oil.
Pour the old oil into a pot, use a strainer to remove some impurities, then turn on the heat and heat the oil until it reaches about 50% temperature. At this point, pour the prepared cornstarch solution into the pot of oil, dividing it into two batches, pouring half each time. Simmer the mixture while continuously stirring until the cornstarch in the oil gradually thickens.
This process lasts for 20-30 seconds. The cornstarch will collect all the sediment in the old oil and thicken. Remove the cornstarch and then pour the remaining solution into the pot of oil, repeating the process as before. After two rounds of absorption, the fine impurities in the old oil can be cleaned.
Reduce the heat, then add all the green onions, ginger, and star anise prepared earlier into the pot of oil, frying until they change color and then remove them. After that, filtering the oil through a fine mesh cloth or filter paper can help make the oil cleaner and clearer. The filtered oil should be cooled and stored in a sealed glass container for future use.
Do not reuse oil that has been used to fry fish or seafood for the first time.
Recycling cooking oil comes with some important notes:
- Cooking oil should not be recycled more than twice as it can be harmful to health.
- After each reuse, the cooking oil loses its balance. Therefore, if you recycle, try to use it all up as this oil spoils quickly. It is also not advisable to mix new oil with recycled oil during use.
- Do not reuse oil that has been used to fry fish or seafood the first time. The strong odor from the old oil is very difficult to eliminate, even after recycling. Attempting to recycle it can easily alter the flavor of the food in the next cooking.
- If the oil smokes while frying, do not reuse this oil.
- Do not mix new oil with old oil or oils from different sources together. For example, do not mix sunflower oil with soybean oil, as it is not beneficial for health.
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