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If you’ve used Mellow Yellow Cold Pressed Rapeseed Oil for deep frying, follow our tips on what to do with oil after deep frying…

 

Reuse

As Mellow Yellow Rapeseed Oil has a high smoke point, you can reuse this oil after deep frying. Once you have used your oil for deep frying, leave it to cool down. Once it is completely cool, pour it through a muslin cloth, coffee filter paper or kitchen roll into a glass bottle or jar that can be sealed. Label the jar with the date you used it for deep frying, what you used it for and the best before date. Store your oil in a cool, dark place and use within six weeks. It is best to use the oil for deep frying similar foods in case any flavour has been imparted into the oil.

 

Recycle

Containers of cooking oil can be recycled by some local recycling centres. Check with your local council to see if they offer this service and then take it to the recycling centre in a sealed bottle or jar.

 

Dispose

If you need to dispose of your oil, you could put a few sheets of something absorbent, eg, kitchen roll or newspaper into your bin and then pour the oil onto this. The oil should then be absorbed and won’t make a mess in your bin. If you don’t have anything absorbent to pour the oil onto, you can wait until it has cooled down and then pour it either back into the bottle or into a glass jar with a lid and place in your rubbish bin.

 

What not to do with oil after deep frying

– Touch too soon – Make sure to leave to cool fully, oil gets VERY hot, so make sure it has had plenty of time to cool down before you touch it.

– Put on the compost heap – Pouring leftover cooking oil onto your compost heap can attract rodents and slow down the composting process.

– Pour down the sink – Never pour leftover oil down your sink as it will eventually blog the pipes and contributes to larger drainage problems.

 

 

 

 

This is my chapter 1 and so today I am focussed on expanding the brand and retailers. As the journey unfolds, I will be looking to expand production in my new studio kitchen and I’ve even started research and development for the next range of products. Watch this space 🙂

 

To buy Pestle curry pastes, visit The Ethical Butcher here. 

Follow Neha on Instagram and Facebook.

We’ve all been affected by the pandemic in some way. At Farrington Oils, most of our office is now working from home, which has allowed our production team and core office staff to remain on the farm producing food for you, safely.

We know how difficult it has been to be isolated from our friends and families. We have found, however, that food and cooking has bought us together, from afar. We’ve loved trying new recipes and sharing hints and tips with our followers, but we wanted to do more. So we set up a giveaway of 20 Mellow Yellow gift sets. We asked our followers on social media to nominate a friend, family member or neighbour that they missed sharing a meal with to receive one of these gift sets.

We were overwhelmed by the incredible nominations we received. Hundreds of heartfelt messages about key workers, missed family members and friends and those going out of their way to support others. We randomly selected 20 winners and sent a Mellow Yellow gift set to their nominee. After reading all the amazing nominations, we wanted to share some all the amazing winner’s stories.

Here are our winning isolation nominations…

• Samantha nominated her friend Karl as she was missing their weekly meals together.
• Chloe, who has been working so hard at her school looking after the children, was nominated by Tracey who is missing her and looking forward to when they can spend family time together again.
• Karin nominated her son Sam as he was supposed to be getting married this year to his lovely fiancee Kav but the wedding has had to be postponed. 
• Cheryl chose to nominate her mother in law Maureen. Although Maureen is old enough to retire she has carried on working as a hospital cleaner, going in doing early morning shifts to make sure the frontline staff can work in a clean environment.
• Ann nominated her friend Louise as she has been there for her throughout lockdown.
• Jury was nominated by her daughter Gayatri for doing a fantastic job teaching throughout lockdown.
• Donald was nominated by his sister. Donald and his wife Gillian both work for the NHS in Scotland and love to cook.
• Ann nominated her neighbour Rosemary. They regularly share home grown produce and Ann is hopping Rosemary will bake her something with the oil in the gift set!
• Ian nominated his daughter Rebecca who throughout the lock down has been serving the general public in her role at Waitrose and also keeping an eye on her elderly neighbours to make sure they have everything they need.
• June wanted to nominate her daughter in law Sarah as a thank you for doing June and her husbands shopping and looking after them as they have been unable to leave the house due to being in the vulnerable category.
• Stephen nominated Leeann as he hoped it would help her get into baking and discover the wonders of banana bread.
• Fiona chose to nominate her friend Hannah who is kind, lovely and working hard for the NHS. Hannah works long hours as a nurse at a hospital in Dorset and Fiona is so proud of Hannah working through these difficult times. She is looking forward to their regular meet ups and meals with Lizi, Immie and Holly when this awful virus has cleared.
• Claire was nominated by Catherine as she is a frontline key worker who went into work on her day off to create a beautiful rainbow mural to lift spirits.
• Sam nominated Sara, his best friend, who turned 50 in March. They have had to put her birthday celebrations on hold until the lockdown is over.
• Mandy was nominated by Alan as she has spent lockdown cooking for her large family and deserved a treat.
• Christina nominated Elizabeth who is a key worker, filling our supermarket shelves day after day on long shifts.  She is a mum of 3 and on top of that she does 3 lots of shopping for her elderly neighbours, baking cakes for them and sharing good advice to keep their spirits high. 
• Kerry nominated her auntie Cheryl as she misses her lots.
• Peter wanted to give Andrea a pick me up as she on lockdown with a severe long term illness.
• Sharon was nominated for being an amazing friend and continuing to make everyone smile every day despite how hard it may be.
• Catherine was nominated by her Mum for her tireless commitment as a hospital doctor in central Birmingham, away from family and working in the thick of Covid-19 with a punishing work rota. She got engaged the day before lockdown, but sadly no opportunity for celebrations!

 

 

We hope everyone is continuing to stay safe and we look forward to being able to share meals with our loved ones again soon!

What is rapeseed oil? Let us answer that for you here…

 

Rapeseed oil is the oil extracted from the small black seeds found in seed pods grown on the rapeseed plant, Brassica napus, a plant species which is a member of the brassica family. These seeds are tiny, quite hard black seeds with a bright yellow centre which holds a high oil content. To release this oil, the seeds must be either pressed or processed at a high temperature.

 

 

We produce our Mellow Yellow Rapeseed Oil by a traditional cold pressing method which we like to call the ‘process of no process’. We simply squeeze the seeds in a screw press and collect the oil that is released. The screw press is very simple and is an incredibly traditional food production method. A slowly turning screw uses pressure to gently squeeze the seeds which releases the oil. This oil is then passed through a filter (a bit like coffee paper) and then it is ready to go into bottles to be used in your kitchen.

 

Not all rapeseed oil is produced in the same way though. Some companies use a chemical extraction method to produce refined rapeseed oil. This involves quite an intense process where the rapeseed oil is extracted from the seeds under high temperatures, then is bleached and deodorised using chemicals to create a flavourless and colourless oil. This is often sold as vegetable oil in large quantities to be used for deep frying.

 

Stages of growth of a rapeseed plant

We sow the seeds into the earth in August straight after harvest time. The seeds are then left to grow throughout September and October with the rain at this time of year helping. Growth slows down from November to February until Spring arrives and it starts to warm up. We put fertiliser on the fields at this time to help the growth. From April onwards, the rapeseed plant continues to grow, becoming a tall, green plant with yellow flowers, about 1m high.

 

 

These yellow flowers appear around May and June time. The flowers then die, leaving a seed pod to grow in their place. This seed pod develops over the late summer months until August when harvest takes place.

 

 

A combine harvester cuts down the plant and breaks the seed pods open to release all the little black seeds that have formed. These seeds can then either be planted again to grow even more rapeseed plants the next year, or can be gently cold pressed to produce cold pressed rapeseed oil.

 

 

What is rapeseed oil also known as?

In the UK, we refer to it as ‘rapeseed oil’ or ‘cold pressed rapeseed oil’ depending on the way it is produced. However, in Canada and the USA, they know it as ‘canola oil’. This stands for Canadian Oil Low Acid, which refers to the low erucic acid of the product.

Some people ask us if we use any genetically modified (GM) rapeseed. Our seeds are not GM and additionally, they are LEAF Marque.  LEAF stands for Linking the Environment And Farming and means that they we are independently audited to ensure that our farming methods are both sustainable and sensitive to the environment.

 

What is rapeseed oil used for?

With a high smoke point, rapeseed oil is a brilliant culinary oil and is great for roasting, frying, baking or dressing. Take a look at our recipes using Mellow Yellow Rapeseed Oil here. As well as a culinary oil, we use our Mellow Yellow Cold Pressed Rapeseed Oil as an ingredient for our range of salad dressings, infused oil and mayonnaise. With its subtle nutty flavour and low saturated fat content, it is perfect for this and creates delicious and healthy dressings and mayonnaise with a beautiful yellow colour.

 

What is so special about Mellow Yellow Rapeseed Oil?

– Duncan Farrington, a fourth generation farmer, was the UK’s original seed-to-bottle producer of cold pressed rapeseed oil back in 2005.

– Our rapeseed is grown to LEAF Marque standards, a system designed to promote environmentally responsible and  sustainable farming.

– Grown, cold pressed and bottled on the Farrington’s family farm in Northamptonshire.

– Flavour is key. Our cold pressed rapeseed oil is not brash or punchy, with mellow nutty and buttery tones.

– 90% less saturated fat than coconut oil and half the saturated fat of olive oil.

– Ten times more Omega 3 than olive oil with a healthy balance of Omega 3, 6 and 9.

 

So what is rapeseed oil? It is a brilliant culinary oil that is produced from the oil found in seeds from the rapeseed plant. Cold pressed rapeseed oil is produced by gently squeezing the seeds and has a subtle nutty flavour and is low in saturated fat with a high smoke point. Find out more about Farrington’s Mellow Yellow Rapeseed Oil here and find your local stockist here.

On Tuesday 25th June, we welcomed almost 400 people to Bottom Farm, the home of Farrington’s Mellow Yellow. We were this year’s host of Universal Cookery and Food Festival. This festival is held at a different venue each year and is attended by chefs, food producers and food industry professionals. We have attended in previous years when it has been hosted at Laverstoke Park (where Jody Scheckter makes his famous Buffalo Mozzarella), Padstow Farm Shop and Westlands Nurseries (the home of microherbs and edible flowers) and Duncan has always thought that Bottom Farm would be an ideal location. After working out if it would be possible and scouting locations for all the different parts of UCFF, we were honoured to be chosen as the host for the festival in 2019.

 

 

After months of organising, the week of the festival arrived. Our grain store was transformed, with two bays being used for food producer’s stalls and a main stage and a game stage being built at the back of each. Outside, a huge marque was built, with even more food producers inside, and an ice cream van, falconry and deer on the grass outside. With plenty of entertainment going on throughout the day, guests were kept busy with superb demonstrations and talks and on the stages about topics relevant to the food industry today, Mellow Yellow farm and factory tours, foraging tours and clay pigeon shooting. Throughout the day, a team of chefs headed by Alan Paton, Matt Wilby and their team, alongside trainee chefs from Northampton College cooked breakfast, lunch and a BBQ for all guests, including truly delicious bacon buns, smoked pigeon chimichurri, crispy chicken wings, a ploughmans grazing station and tasty salads.

 

 

UCFF was established by three chefs from the Craft Guild of Chefs – Jon Feeney, Lee Maycock and Ian Nottage. They wanted a show created by chefs, for chefs, full of an eclectic mix of demonstrations, workshops, in-land and coastal foraging, farm tours and live debates to create an event unlike anything else available.

 

 

Mellow Yellow Farm & Factory Tours:

A true field-to-bottle experience. First we took guests into a field of rapeseed and explained how we grow our crops to sustainable LEAF Marque standards, the timeline of a growing rapeseed crop and the harvesting process. After this, the tour moved into our production barn where guests were able to see our oil presses gently squeezing the rapeseed to produce oil, filtering and storage of oil and then finally, the oil being bottled ready to be sent to shops and restaurants around the country.

 

Foraging Tours:

Fred the Forager hosted these tours. Fred is from Fruits of the Forage and is an expert is foraging the British countryside. He started by explaining that foraging comes from bees as they leave the hive every day and ‘forage’ for honey. Hogwood was a particular focus for Fred’s tour as he uses this a lot in his range of homemade jams and chutneys. This is an incredibly common plant in Britain and it was very interesting to hear Fred explain many of the uses for this relatively unknown plant.

Clay Pigeon Shooting:

With the introduction of a Game stage to this year’s UCFF, clay pigeon shooting was an obvious activity to include. The British Association for Shooting and Conservation offered their ‘Have a Go’ clay shooting to guests.

 

The day ended with a delicious BBQ and music by local band The Ouse Valley Singles Club.

 

Hosting UCFF in 2019 was a huge honour for us and was truly a day to be remembered! For more information on future UCFF shows, visit their website or follow them on Twitter.

Can you cook with cold pressed rapeseed oil? We get asked this question quite a lot, and the answer is simply YES. There is a lot of information about how some oils are only for drizzling or cooking at low temperatures and that some oils are meant for high temperature cooking, so let us explain the differences between the oils and what makes them suitable for high temperature cooking.

 

The way to tell if an oil is suitable for cooking with is to look at its smoke point. Smoke point is the temperature at which oil can be heated to before it starts to produce smoke. Once an oil goes above its smoke point, other than the unpleasant smoke that is created, the oil itself also starts to breakdown and the nutritional composition changes.

 

Different oils have different smoke points, below shows the smoke point of common cooking oils. This is a great way for you to choose the oil that you need for your cooking and which oil you may want for other uses, such as drizzling.

 

Smoke points of common cooking oils

Cold Pressed Rapeseed Oil – 230°C

Sunflower Oil – 225°C

Extra Virgin Olive Oil – 190°C

Coconut Oil – 175°C

Butter – 120°C-150°C

 

Typically, when roasting in an oven, your oil will get up to 180°C, so for roasting you need to ensure you choose an oil with a smoke point above this. For pan frying, you may reach up to 220°C and deep frying is typically around 180°C.

 

When choosing a cooking oil, you need to ensure that the smoke point is suitable for what you want to use it for. As well as smoke point, nutritional composition and flavour are also very important.

 

 

Farrington’s Mellow Yellow Cold Pressed Rapeseed Oil is an ideal all-round cooking oil. With a high smoke point of 230°C, you know that you can use it for all types of cooking. As well as the smoke point, our cold pressed rapeseed oil also has a lovely subtle, nutty flavour, which means it great for cooking all sorts of delicate ingredients such as fish and also adds a lovely nutty flavour when used a drizzle or pouring oil. In terms of nutrition, cold pressed rapeseed oil has half the saturated fat of olive oil and ten times less than coconut oil, it has the correct balance of Omega 3, 6 and 9 which is good for your health and it also contains Vitamin E and Vitamin K. For more information about the health benefits of cold pressed rapeseed oil, read our blog post here.

 

 

Delicious recipes to cook with cold pressed rapeseed oil

 

Now you know that you can cook with cold pressed rapeseed oil, here are our some of our favourite recipes to cook with cold pressed rapeseed oil that take advantage of the versatility of this brilliant oil…

Roast potatoes

By using Mellow Yellow Cold Pressed Rapeseed Oil, you can create a beautifully crunchy coating with a light and fluffy centre. Follow our Roast Potato recipe here.

 

Stir Fry

Drizzle your oil into a hot wok and enjoy cooking a stir fry without creating lots of smoke. Find our Vegetable Stir Fry and Dipping Sauce recipe here.

 

Crispy Baked Chicken Goujons

Mixed with panko breadcrumbs, the oil on the outside of these goujons gets super crispy in the oven without needing to deep fry! Find the recipe here.

 

Raspberry & White Chocolate Granola Bars

The subtle, nutty flavour of cold pressed rapeseed oil is perfect in these simple and delicious granola bars. Recipe here.

 

For more recipes, visit our Recipe page.

To find stockists of our Mellow Yellow Cold Pressed Rapeseed Oil, visit our Where to Buy page.

Did you know that making cakes with oil is just as easy and tasty as using butter? Well we have plenty of recipes for you to get started baking with oil.

 

One of the main benefits we find when making cakes with oil is that you no longer have to struggle to combine hard butter with sugar. Simply pour your oil into a mixing bowl with your sugar and mix, as the oil is a liquid you will find it so much easier and quicker to combine the two.

With a subtle nutty flavour, Mellow Yellow Cold Pressed Rapeseed Oil is great for making cakes as this nuttiness is very subtle but adds a wonderful depth of flavour to your bakes.

As well as being easier and with a delicious flavour, using Mellow Yellow for baking acts as a brilliant butter substitute so you can make vegan or dairy free cakes.

 

Our favourite recipes…

Courgette Cake

Courgettes make this tasty cake wonderfully moist. With a lime cream cheese frosting, the sweetness is perfectly balanced to create a cake that doesn’t feel heavy or too indulgent. Our recipe can be found here.

 

Rhubarb Cake

A seasonal delight and a refreshing change from rhubarb crumble. Almond and rhubarb join together in this delicious cake, an easy yet impressive bake to enjoy during the rhubarb season. Enjoy with a dollop of creme fraiche for a simple and delicious dessert, recipe here.

 

Apple Cake

We love making delicate little apple roses to decorate this cake with. Thanks to the apple, this recipe creates a particularly moist cake that is wonderful enjoyed with a cup of tea. Fill with whipped cream for that extra indulgent touch!

 

Vegan Banana Bread

This recipe is made in one bowl to keep it super simple and reduce washing up. Use overripe bananas rather than throwing them away to keep your food waste to a minimum and enjoy this delicious banana bread in the process, find our recipe here.

 

Plum Cake

This cake is fantastic, especially when made with seasonal British plums which create a lovely decoration on top the cake. With ground almonds in the sponge, this cake has a lovely nutty flavour to it which is complemented by the sweetness of ripe plums.

 

We hope these tasty recipes inspire you to start making cakes with oil!

 

For more information on our brilliant cold pressed rapeseed oil, visit our Product page.

For stockists, visit our Where To Buy page.

For more recipe inspiration, visit our Recipe page.

Yes, of course you can make pastry without butter!

 

Shortcrust pastry is normally made with butter which can take a lot of time and effort as you need to slowly rub the butter into the flour. As well as time consuming, this can also get quite messy. As Mellow Yellow Rapeseed Oil has much less saturated fat than butter, we often encourage people to swap butter in cooking for Mellow Yellow, but pastry has always proved tricky. However, we decided to do a bit of recipe testing in the Mellow Yellow kitchen and see if we could create the perfect shortcrust pastry recipe using Mellow Yellow.

 

Eli got to work, changing quantities of oil, flour and water to achieve the perfect melt-in-the-mouth texture, not too crumbly and not too hard. After a few attempts, she had finally cracked it! We have created two pastry recipes; one is sweet for creating delicious fruit pies and galettes and a savoury recipe that is ideal for quiches and tarts. Eli’s method simply involves mixing Mellow Yellow Rapeseed Oil with flour until it comes together to form a breadcrumb-like texture. Next you pour in water and mix, the pastry will then come together into a ball. After resting in the fridge, your pastry is ready to be rolled out and used in your recipe!

 

As well as being super simple, by making pastry without butter, the pastry is now suitable for vegans or anyone that is dairy-free.

 

So if you would like to have a go at making pastry without butter, try our simple recipes below.

 

Savoury Pastry

This is our basic savoury pastry recipe. Using a mixture of wholemeal and white flour, we have created a fantastically versatile recipe that is perfect for quiches, tarts, pies and pasties. By adding wholemeal flour, this pastry isn’t too crumbly and has a delicious nutty flavour. Find the recipe here.

Use this pastry in:

Asparagus, Cheese and Egg Tartlets

 

Sweet Pastry

Our vegan sweet shortcrust pastry recipe uses plain flour to give a delicious crumbly texture with a touch of sweetness. Perfect for making simple fruit galettes, pies or tarts, this recipe is so easy that you’ll be able to make a batch of pastry in no time at all. You can find our recipe here.

Use this pastry in:

Blackberry & Apple Galette

 

Mini Strawberry Galettes

 

Mince Pies

 

For more recipes using Mellow Yellow Rapeseed Oil, visit our Recipes page.

Cooking oils are a type of fat. Fat is a macronutrient (like protein and carbohydrate) that is made up of fatty acids. With so many different cooking oils available, most people don’t know which oil they should be using in their cooking for the healthiest results and often ask us what is the healthiest oil to cook with . This article will help to explain the different factors you should consider when choosing which oil to cook with.

 

 

What should we consider when looking at what is the healthiest oil to cook with?

When trying to decide which oil to cook with, we need to look at the following things. (We’ll explain each one a bit later on!)

– Saturated fat

– Unsaturated fat

– Trans fat

– Omega 3, 6 and 9

– Smoke point

– Vitamins and minerals found in the oil

 

What is fat?

Fat is a macronutrient (like protein and carbohydrate) and is made up of fatty acids. These fatty acids can be classified as saturated or unsaturated depending on their chemical structure. Unsaturated fatty acids include monounsaturated fatty acids and polyunsaturated fatty acids.

All fats provide 9 calories (kcal) per gram, regardless of the levels of saturated and unsaturated fatty acids, the big difference is the effect these fats have on your cholesterol levels so we need to ensure that we eat the healthiest fat we can.

Fat is a good source of energy and we need some fat in our diet to help us absorb the fat soluble vitamins A, D, E and K.

Within the body, fatty acids form part of our cell membranes and fat also helps to insulate and protect our internal organs, contributing towards maintaining our body temperature and is involved in lots of body processes such as the development of our brains and the communications which occur between different cells. Cholesterol is needed to produce bile acids, which help us to digest food, and also some of our hormones.

 

What is Saturated Fat?

Saturated fat is found in foods such as fatty meats, hard cheese and butter.

High intakes of saturated fat have been shown to raise levels of ‘bad’ (LDL – Low Density Lipoproteins) cholesterol in the blood. High blood cholesterol increases the risk of developing heart disease and stroke by building up in our arteries, causing them to narrow. It is best to eat foods that contain less saturated fat.

An easy way to tell if your oil contains high levels of saturated fat is whether it is solid at room temperature, if it is, it most likely contains a high amount of saturated fat.

Chemically speaking, saturated fats have don’t have any double bonds between their carbon atoms in the fatty acid chain.

 

What is Unsaturated Fat?

Often called ‘good fat’, unsaturated fat help to maintain a healthy cholesterol level and have even been known to help lower levels of harmful cholesterol. Unsaturated fats are either monounsaturated or polyunsaturated.

Our bodies are able to make most of the specific fatty acids we need apart from two polyunsaturated fatty acids which we must get from our diet. These two fatty acids are alpha linolenic acid (an omega 3 polyunsaturated fatty acid) and linoleic acid (an omega 6 polyunsaturated fatty acid). Our bodies need these for brain development, growth and for a healthy immune system.

Omega 3 and 6 are called essential fatty acids as we need to obtain small amounts of them from our diet. Alpha linolenic acid is found in rapeseed, walnut and soya oils and spreads made from these. Linoleic is also found in plant based oils such as sunflower, corn, peanut, rapeseed, olive, safflower, sesame, walnut and soya oil and spreads made from these. Both of the essential fatty acids are present in smaller amounts in foods such as meat, eggs and oily fish. Ideally our bodies need Omega 3 and Omega 6 in the right balance of one part Omega 3 to every two parts Omega 6.

 

What about Trans Fat?

These are the worst types of fat and should be avoided wherever possible as they have been known to increase blood cholesterol levels. Typically, foods with hydrogenated oils likely contain trans fats, such as fried foods, takeaways and hard margarines.

 

As you can see, the levels of saturated and unsaturated fat in your cooking oil is very important. We have broken down the most common oils in the simple table below for you.

* Ideal balance of Omega 3 to Omega 6.

 

Does Smoke Point matter?

Other than the levels of different fats in your oil, if you are cooking with oil, you need to ensure that the smoke point is suitable. It can be dangerous to take an oil over its smoke point as this can cause the chemical structure to break down, which is why we always recommend cold pressed rapeseed oil for high temperature cooking as it has a smoke point of 230°C.

 

Are Vitamins and minerals found in oil?

Some oils, especially those that are cold pressed, can contain naturally occurring vitamins and minerals. Plant sterols can also be found in some oils, learn more about these in our blog post. 

Cold pressed rapeseed oil contains vitamin E, vitamin K and catotenoids including provitamin A. Vitamin E is an important antioxidant and vitamin K is needed for efficient blood clotting. Provitamin A is essential for healthy skin, eyesight, growth and reproduction and, carotenoids contain luteins which are an antioxidant and give the oil its distinctive yellow colour.

 

So what is the healthiest oil to cook with?

We want an oil with low saturated fat, high unsaturated fat (including both polyunsaturated and monounsaturated), a high smoke point and containing as many other vitamins and minerals as possible.

The obvious choice has to be cold pressed rapeseed oil (but we would say that, wouldn’t we!) From the table, we can see that cold pressed rapeseed oil has the lowest saturated fat levels, a good balance of both types of unsaturated fat, a high smoke point and also contains vitamin E and plant sterols.

 

All oils contain a mixture of unsaturated fat and saturated fat and the healthiest ones to use are those with the lowest saturated fat and highest unsaturated fat.

So, if you’re asked what is the healthiest oil to cook with, you now know that you want an oil with a low saturated fat content and high in unsaturated fat. Cold pressed rapeseed oil is ideal, find out more here and find stockists here.

Not just used by home cooks, our Mellow Yellow Cold Pressed Rapeseed Oil has made it’s way into many professional kitchens. Dean Hoddle, Head Chef of Silverstone Race Circuit here in Northamptonshire, tells us all about how he uses our oil to create delicious dishes…

 

As the Head Chef of Silverstone Circuit my dedicated team of chefs and I have to deliver a multitude of culinary offers for various events around the circuit. Whether it be a sandwich working lunch for an intimate meeting; a buffet style menu for a large trade exhibition, a banquet style meal for a FSTE 100 company or race day hospitality for the UK’s most prestigious motorsport events. Each event presents its unique challenges but it is overcoming these particular challenges that my team and I especially relish.

One of the main challenges we face is creating a balanced menu that is applicable to so many diverse events; often with large numbers and an ever varied number of diets. This is never easy to undertake and with my passion for local produce I often find myself looking closer to home for the finest produce to use on the menu.

In Northamptonshire we are truly blessed with excellent local produce and food loving artisan producers. Getting to know them and just talking about their produce you can see the passion that goes into the products they produce. Once we get to know them and build a relationship with them, the sky is the limit. I often find myself talking to them discussing new product ideas, then, hey presto, we have an exclusive product concept which ends up being a bespoke product exclusive to Silverstone. You don’t get that often as a Head Chef anymore.

With Farrington Oils the fact they are in the rolling countryside of Northamptonshire is a real bonus. The soil is perfect rapeseed growing conditions and the fields around the county are often ablaze with a sea of yellow. Deep within the countryside down a single lane country road in a sleepy village you come across Farrington Oils. The sea of yellow around the farm, the grain stores, the production area and the development kitchen: you just can’t help yourself but be excited. It sounds idyllic and it certainly is but it’s not just about the look and feel of where you are. What they produce is also special. 

Let’s start with the oil. The unmistakable look of the golden colour and smooth taste makes this product a pure joy to work with. It’s so versatile we can apply it to any dish that you would use other oils in and simply get a far better result. The smooth undertone of flavour comes through to give you a distinct yet subtle flavour which enhances the produce.

From this base product Farrington Oils make a selection of dressings which are on all of our menus from Corporate Hospitality events to the biggest event on the Silverstone calendar: the British Grand Prix. The selection of flavours really complement our dishes and the design on the bottles with the brand “Mellow Yellow” which is recognised as quality, is simply placed on the service points to add to the luxury of our offering.

When you add all this together: the fantastic service which is very personal; the ability to create new ideas and the amazing base product you simply cannot lose. I’m looking forward to my next visit to Farrington Oils where my chefs and I will be playing in the development kitchen looking onto the yellow fields for inspiration.

 

Dean Hoddle, Head Chef, Silverstone

Follow Dean on Twitter & Instagram.