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.

We’re so pleased to present Pestle Curry Pastes, a brand new brand that uses Mellow Yellow Rapeseed Oil as a key ingredient! We chatted to Neha, the founder of Pestle, about this exciting new venture…

 

First up, introduce yourself and your products! 

Hi, I’m Neha Hampton, I’m a chef based in Sussex and I’m excited to share my new brand, Pestle. Pestle is a range of hand crafted curry pastes blended to capture the flavours of some our favourite dishes. This brand is not just about great food, it’s a journey of exploration fuelled by curiosity to look beyond what we know to uncover the stories of history, people and places with the aim to promote cultural unity. 

 

How did Pestle start?

This year has presented us with many challenges and changed everything we know and love. Motivated by my desire to connect with people and share my love for food, I decided to turn a hobby of making fresh curry pastes into a small business. It all started in my local community and with a outpouring of support I decided to make it official and that’s how Pestle was born.  

 

 

We’re so pleased to be used in your curry pastes. How did you first hear of Mellow Yellow and why did you choose to include us in your pastes? 

I’ve been a fan and have used Mellow Yellow in my home for many years now – I love the slightly nutty flavour and the versatility with so many different cuisines. A lot of Indian curries involve slowly caramelising onions, garlic and ginger as a base and an oil with a high smoke point works best for this… Mellow Yellow is perfect and the colour reminds me of the mustard oil that my mum used to cook with. To say I was delighted to find out that it was available in larger quantities for businesses like mine is an understatement! 

 

Your first range of curry pastes is called ‘Behind the British Curry’, can you tell us about the history of a curry in the range?

The love for curry weaves through many generations and Indian cuisine has firmly made it into the hearts and onto the plates of Britain. 

The ‘Behind the British Curry’ range shares stories & flavours of the ancestral heritage of some of our favourite dishes. Vindaloo for example, is Goa’s most famous export… its origins however trace back to Portuguese traders in the 15th century who carried with them a dish called carne vinha d’alhos, pork marinaded in garlic and vinegar for their long journeys. The dish was adapted in Goa to local conditions and with no vinegar, they used palm wine and added local ingredients like tamarind, pepper & cinnamon. Chillies in fact arrived with Vasco De Gama in 1498 and eventually replaced or complimented black pepper as a source of heat in Goan cuisine.

 

How are your pastes made?

There’s essentially 3 stages – the first is caramelising onions, garlic and ginger in Farrington’s Mellow Yellow Cold Pressed Rapeseed Oil, the second is roasting and grinding my unique blend of spices and the third is bringing these together to form a paste. The aim is to make the cooking process for the customer simple and easy – you just add in a few ingredients, cook and voila, a super tasty meal.

 

 

We know the quality ingredients are important to you, other than our oil, can you tell us about any other special ingredients used?

Spices are a real foundation to my pastes and are an important part of the culinary heritage that we share all over the world. When developing my recipes I reflect on my travels & my own experiences of these dishes and I am looking to create as near to those moments as possible. This means creating the perfect balance and blend of spices and when developing recipes, literally adjusting each peppercorn up and down to get them perfect. 

 

We love the packaging of your products, what inspired these beautiful designs?

One of the pillars of the brand is the idea of ‘handmade’ so when it came to packaging I wanted to follow that theme. I wanted this to feel like something you could grow, like a packet of seeds and hence the envelope. The hand drawn illustrations are by a friend Mel @smithandwonder and we worked together to capture the essence of the Pestle and ingredients that go into each paste. 

 

What is your favourite dish to cook (not including your own curry pastes)?

Wow, what a big question. As a fully obsessive foodie, I love cooking is every shape or form, from baking to making an omelette to elaborate fine dining. One of my favourite dishes to cook and eat is Bebek Betutu – a Balinese duck dish, which is covered in a spice paste and roasted for 4-6 hours at a low heat. I recently added in Farrington’s Mellow Yellow Oak Smoked Rapeseed Oil which adds the flavour and memory of the duck being slow cooked over a wood fire in Bali. 

 

Where can we find your products and where can we follow you on social media?

You’ll find me on the socials @pestleltd – here you’ll see my journey of food and stories of people, places and history.

I recently launched with my first online retailer, The Ethical Butcher – you can buy pastes and meal kits where the pastes have been paired with incredible meats to give you a simple, easy and tasty meals at home. More retailers announcing very soon!

 

What’s coming next for Pestle?

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.

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.

 

what is rapeseed oil press

Rapeseed oil dripping from a press

 

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.

 

what is rapeseed oil field

Rapeseed flowers

 

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.

 

what is rapeseed oil seed pods

Rapeseed pods ready for harvest

 

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 harvest

Harvesting rapeseed

 

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 rapeseed oil range

Mellow Yellow range

 

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.

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.

crispy roast potatoes thumbnail

 

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.

Vegetable Stir Fry thumbnail

 

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.

crispy baked chicken goujons

 

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.

White Chocolate Granola Bars Thumbnail

 

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.

making cakes with oil courgette cake

 

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.

making cakes with butter rhubarb

 

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!

making cakes with oil apple cake

 

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.

making cakes with oil banana

 

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.

making cakes with oil plum

 

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.

“Salads are good for us.”

 

Everyone agrees with this statement as we are encouraged to eat five portions of fruit and vegetables, including salads, every day. Salads provide an essential source of vitamins, minerals, anti-oxidants and fibre, as well as being a delicious meal or accompaniment to meals. So why are we telling you to never eat a salad naked?

As people become more aware of healthy diets, the desire for low fat, low sugar or low salt meals and ingredients increases. This is especially so with oils, mayonnaises and salad dressings as ‘low fat’ or single calorie sprays become increasingly popular. At Farrington’s Mellow Yellow we often speak to customers who are keen to eat a healthy low-fat diet, to the extent that they don’t like to put salad dressings or mayonnaise on their salad with the aim of reducing their fat intake. The logic and ambition may be good, but a quest to reduce calorie intake by eating a salad un-dressed actually deprives people of the fantastic health promoting nutrition locked up in the salad. Not only is a fat required to absorb the nutrition within a salad, dressing a salad makes it more interesting and delicious to eat, helping you to make it a regular and enjoyable part of your diet. Also consideration should be given to the choice of fat used, but more on that later.

Salads are a wonderful source of vitamins and carotenoids. Vitamins play vital roles in health and body metabolism, along with their interaction with minerals required in the diet. We need to take vitamins in small regular amounts in our diet as the body can not store them and they can even be harmful if taken in excess. Vitamins are either fat soluble or water soluble, with Vitamins A, D, E and K being fat soluble. Salads contain fat soluble vitamins, so unless a salad is dressed with an oil-based dressing or mayonnaise, it is very difficult for the body to absorb these vitamins. By eating a healthy, balanced diet, there is no need for vitamin supplements to be taken.

Carotenoids are the naturally-occurring pigments in foods, with fruits and vegetables providing most of the carotenoids in the human diet. They play important roles in the body as powerful anti-oxidants; from the prevention of various types of cancers and chronic heart disease, to the maintenance of healthy eyesight. Carrots, known to help us see in the dark, get their orange colour from Alpha and Beta-Carotene. While the yellow colour of Mellow Yellow Cold Pressed Rapeseed Oil comes from carotenoids called Luteins, containing around five times more than in extra virgin olive oil.*

Carotenoids are fat-soluble compounds so, just like the fat-soluble vitamins, to get the best nutritional benefit from colourful salad ingredients such as peppers, carrots, spinach and tomatoes, dress your salad with a fat to allow your body to absorb the carotenoids. However, research has shown that the type of fat eaten also affects how well we can absorb carotenoids from food. For example, a salad dressing made with an oil rich in mono-unsaturated fats, such as cold pressed rapeseed oil, absorbs more carotenoids compared to a dressing made with oils rich in saturated or poly-unsaturated fats, such as soybean, palm, sunflower or coconut oils for example. So not only should you ensure your salad is dressed with a fat, you should try to ensure the fat is rich in mono-unsaturates.

 

 

Why you should never eat a salad naked:

– Adding fat to salad allows your body to process the fat-soluble vitamins

– Using an oil rich in mono-unsaturated, such as cold pressed rapeseed oil, helps the body absorb anti-oxidant caratonoids

– Adding flavour helps motivate you to eat healthy salads regularly by making them more enjoyable

 

 

So, whether you are a purest and enjoy your salad simply drizzled with oil, like to pimp up a lettuce leaf creatively with a salad dressing, or if you prefer an indulgent dollop of mayonnaise; remember never eat a salad naked. The best dressed salads not only taste better, but make their nutritional delights all the more enjoyable. And just pause to think if a single calorie spray oil, a low fat salad dressing or mayonnaise really is as healthy as you first thought? Not to mention what actually goes into making some of those so-called healthy options…

But as far as the clothing you chose to wear, or not, while enjoying your favourite salad, we’ll leave that up to you.

 

* Crude rapeseed oil contains up to 95 mg/kg carotenoids, comprising about 85-90% luteins and 7-10% as carotene (Gunstone 2004). Extra virgin olive oil also contains luteins and carotene, but at levels of up to 20mg/kg only (Bosku, 2009) i.e., it only contains around one fifth the carotenoid antioxidant properties of rapeseed oil.
Bosku D., (2009). Olive oil Minor Constituents and Health CRC press p52.
Gunstone F D., (2004). Rapeseed and Canola Oil; Productrion, Processing, Properties and Uses, Blackwell Publishing

The rapeseed crop has been grown in Britain for a number of centuries, in fact, it was first introduced to the UK by the Romans. Rapeseed is a brassica and is related to such plants as the cabbage, mustard and turnip for example. Rapeseed became a popular crop in the UK from the 1970’s, as farmers were encouraged to grow it due to increasing demand for a refined British rapeseed oil by food manufacturers, as an alternative to other imported refined oils. The oil also became popular in Canada and the USA and became known as canola oil.

 

Rapeseed continued to be used purely as a refined oil until 2005, when Duncan Farrington became the UK’s first seed-to-bottle producer of cold pressed rapeseed oil. After studying the oil as part of his degree, he was fascinated by the health and culinary benefits when it was cold pressed. So, in 2005 he set up a small press on his family farm and started cold pressing the rapeseed grown in his fields. The oil was a huge success and British cold pressed rapeseed oil is now a store cupboard staple for many households up and down the country. 

 

british rapeseed oil duncan

 

Benefits of cold pressed rapeseed oil

– Half the saturated fat of olive oil and ten times less than coconut oil

– Healthy balance of Omega 3, 6 and 9

– 10 times more Omega 3 than olive oil

– A rich source of vitamin E

– Contains plant sterols and phenols

– High smoke point of 230°C

– Subtle, nutty flavour with buttery notes

 

Producing British Rapeseed Oil

We are so proud to produce British rapeseed oil. As we grow, press and bottle our Mellow Yellow oil on our farm in Northamptonshire, it is truly British. Normally planted in August, a rapeseed crop is incredibly difficult to establish as it needs perfect conditions for it to survive the first couple months as it emerges through the soil. To ensure success the crop requires a combination of good soil nutrition and structure; moisture in the soil (but not too much); warm soils, ideally over 9°C; no pests, especially Cabbage Flea Beetles and Slugs, both of which find newly emerged tender leaves incredibly delicious and can decimate a crop in a matter of days. Later in the winter months, pigeons also enjoy eating the leaves which we try to stop with bird-scarers.

 

If the farmer’s skill, along with a bit of mother nature’s help get the crop through to the spring, then rapeseed starts looking after itself as the days lengthen and the weather warms. From late February onwards it starts waking up and literally grows before your eyes, going from a small cabbage like plant to something over a metre tall in a matter of weeks. By April the crop starts flowering, giving the countryside the recognisable yellow fields. The flowers are pollinated by native bumble bees, to produce the tiny black seeds ready to harvest some eleven months after the crop was first planted.

 

As well as the weather affecting the growth of the rapeseed crop, weather conditions at harvest time also affects the quality of the finished oil. Ideally the seeds need to be harvested in cool dry conditions, as moist warm conditions will spoil the crop and encourage the growth of moulds. Once harvested, the seed is stored with the moisture and temperature carefully controlled to ensure the seed is keep in the best possible condition, ready to be cold pressed to make a deliciously healthy, quality British rapeseed oil.

 

british rapeseed oil in field

 

Where to buy British Rapeseed Oil

Farrington’s Mellow Yellow Rapeseed Oil is available nationally from Booths, Morrisons, Ocado, Sainsbury’s, Waitrose and many independent farm shops and delis. In order to find your local stockist, visit our Where to Buy page and just enter your postcode. 

 

british rapeseed oil bottle

We are often asked at Farrington’s what is meant by the term ‘cold pressed’ in Farrington’s Mellow Yellow cold pressed rapeseed oil? A good question that does need some explaining.

 

Extracting oil from seeds and fruits such as rapeseed and olives is one of the world’s oldest forms of food processing. This along with grinding seeds into flour from wheat or making alcohol from barley for beer, or grapes for wine. The traditional method to extract oil is by mechanical ‘cold pressing’. If you have enjoyed a Mediterranean holiday, you may have seen an old big wooden olive oil press in the middle of a village square. Fresh olives would be poured into the press, a donkey would walk in a continual circle and the press would squeeze the fruit until the oil came trickling out.

In Britain we don’t grow olive trees, but we do grow rapeseed and have done since the Romans first brought it here over 2000 years ago. No doubt they would have used something similar to the donkey driven press to extract oil from the seed. However, for the last hundred plus years, oil has been extracted from seeds in Britain mainly by the industrialised method known as the ‘pre-press solvent extraction process’. This was developed as a highly efficient system of extracting oil, using high temperatures around 85°C, with the addition of a solvent (think of nail varnish remover or paint thinners), following which the oil is degummed, neutralised, dried, bleached and deodorised. Although this is a complicated process, it is a highly efficient way to extract large volumes of refined oil cheaply, with the resulting bland, colourless oil being ideal for many food manufacturing processes, as it does not flavour or colour the foods being made.

Many oils are produced in this way the world over, including olive oil, sunflower oil, groundnut oil, corn oil, rice bran oil, as well as rapeseed oil. 

It wasn’t until the advent of package holidays in the 1970’s, that we started to become aware of more exotic types of culinary oil and other exotic foods. This resulted in British food starting to get a bit more colourful and a little less bland. By the time I launched Farrington’s Mellow Yellow in 2005 as Britain’s first ‘seed-to-bottle’ cold pressed rapeseed oil, people were happy to give cold pressed rapeseed oil a go.

 

cold pressed close up

 

Going back to the original question of what does ‘cold pressed’ mean and why is it better…

Firstly, cold pressed is just that, we simply squeeze the seeds mechanically to extract the pure oil, without any additional heat being used, then pass the oil through filters a bit like a large tea strainer to remove any sediment. This means that the process is slow and inefficient compared to the refined process, so less oil is extracted from the seed. As a comparison, our cold pressed rapeseed oil leaves around 12% oil in the seed, whereas the industrialised method will only leave around 1%. However, nothing is wasted. Once the seed has been pressed, the leftover seed husks are shaped into rape meal pellets and given to farm animals as nutritious feed.

Additionally, cold pressed oils retain their natural character as nature intended. The most obvious being a superior taste and appearance compared to a refined oil. Cold-pressed rapeseed oil has a mild taste with subtle nutty or seedy flavours. Farrington’s Mellow Yellow, for example, has flavours of raw groundnuts, hazelnuts or sunflower seeds, whilst this flavour is underpinned by buttery undertones. Some people can taste the buttery flavour and not the nutty one. Mellow Yellow is also clean and light on the tongue, with no bitter aftertaste. These subtle or mellow flavours make it ideal to be used as a salad dressing oil, allowing the ingredients it is mixed with to come through, giving a different character to a dressing made with an olive oil, for example. Whilst the same mellow flavour makes the oil ideal for all types of cooking from baking breads and cakes, to seafood recipes and, also for roasting and stir-frying vegetables. 

 

Rapeseed oil is naturally yellow in colour hence the name ‘Mellow Yellow.’ This is down to the presence of carotenoids. Carotenoids play important roles in the prevention of various types of cancers, heart disease and eye health. People are increasingly looking for benefits from natural sources of carotenoids found in several unprocessed foods. Cold pressed rapeseed oil mainly consists of a carotenoid group called luteins, important for healthy eye function. This is almost completely removed in refined oils.

Plant sterols are another health promoting micronutrient found in cold pressed rapeseed oil, shown to help lower cholesterol levels. Although the sterol levels in rapeseed oil are too low to make official health claims, it is an excellent source compared to other oils. Again, however many of these important micronutrients are lost in refined oils.

 

Whether it is the delicious taste, the wonderful colour, the knowledge that you are enjoying pure, unadulterated food with its naturally healthy properties, or just the fact that a cold pressed oil reminds you of holidaying in Greece, there are no end of reasons to use Mellow Yellow cold pressed rapeseed oil. There is a genuine difference in the provenance of cold pressed oils compared to their bland and less exciting refined versions. And, research shows that consuming cold-pressed unrefined rapeseed oil is an important part of a healthy diet and lifestyle.  

 

For more information on our Mellow Yellow Cold Pressed Rapeseed oil, click here and to find out where to buy our Cold Pressed Rapeseed Oil you can use out Store Finder 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.

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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.

We’re so excited to share our eagerly awaited, wonderful new dressing with you! Introducing Mellow Yellow Chilli and Cumin Dressing …

Aromatic and lively, combining the heat of chilli with the gentle aroma of cumin. A deliciously daring dressing or marvellous marinade.

 

For our first new dressing in four years, we wanted to create something bold and full of flavour. The flavours of chilli and cumin fit the bill perfectly! The chilli flavour is subtle enough to add a pleasant heat to your cooking with a delicious aromatic base from the cumin seeds. Not just for salads, use this dressing as a marinade for salmon, BBQ’s prawns, roasted vegetables or even in a simple butter bean hummus! We absolutely love the combination of spice and fragrance, adding a fantastic flavour to even the simplest of salads.

 

Just like every product in the Mellow Yellow range, our Chilli and Cumin Dressing is made with the finest ingredients. With no additives or preservatives, it is also vegan and gluten free. Thanks to our Mellow Yellow cold pressed rapeseed oil, the dressing is rich in Omega 3 and low in saturated fat so you know you are using a good quality dressing that’s also good for your health.

 

How can I get a bottle?

 

Available now from farm shops, delis and food halls. Make sure to ask your local farm shop to stock Mellow Yellow Chilli and Cumin Dressing if they don’t already! Once you’ve picked up your bottle, we’d love to know your favourite recipe, so make sure to tag us on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.

 

Take a look at our other salad dressings too: Honey & Mustard, Classic Vinaigrette & Balsamic Dressing