Saluting The Grape

Note that grapeseed oil has no relation to rapeseed oil, one cultivar of which is canola oil. Rapeseed is a bright yellow flowering member of the family Brassicaceae (the mustard, cabbage and turnip family)—no kin to the fruit of the vine.

The grapeseed oil is imported from Italy, where it is certified kosher, and the infused flavors are made in California (the flavored oils are not kosher). Salute Santé!’s plain oil is very elegant for cooking—so light and fresh that it reminds one of just how heavy and greasy most other cooking oils are. Here, there is no heavy oil draining out of fried chicken, for example, or leaving oil splotches on one’s fingers when eating the chicken.

But for the same reason it’s a great cooking oil, the plain oil doesn’t offer enough flavor to hold its own in a salad dressing. That’s where the infused grapeseed oils are spectacular: pure, bold, and leaping to add vigor to every food they touch. The herbs come from a biodynamic farm in California and are picked according to the biodynamic calendar for optimum intensity of flavor. No cook (or non-cook) will fail to be delighted with a set of these oils (and they are beautifully bottled and conveniently gift-boxed). They turn any food into a better dish. Let’s take a look at the oils, and then a more expanded list of serving suggestions and recipes.

• Basil Grapeseed Oil. Whether standing in for fresh basil with tomatoes and fresh mozzarella cheese or with regular salad greens in a vinaigrette, this oil brings garden basil straight to the table. Toss it with pasta or rice, or mix a spoonful into any sauce, soup or stew that begs for some fresh basil flavor.
• Roasted Garlic Grapeseed Oil. For a country that loves garlic, no wonder this is the best seller. It tastes as if the fresh garlic cloves are still in the bottle. Brush it on toasted baguette for instant garlic bread—there’s no need to do anything more. It makes a heavenly garlic mayonnaise. Use it as a cholesterol-free “butter” for corn on the cob. Yum!
• Chili Grapeseed Oil. This is a pleasantly mild chili oil. If you want a spicier one, we refer you to two other products with a lot more kick.† Even Northeasterners like us can enjoy this chili oil with their morning eggs. Or use it in Chinese, Mexican or Thai dishes, or to add a little spice to everyday foods. We add a bit to gazpacho and to tuna salad. Add some sizzle to old standards like artichoke dip and three-bean salad.
• Lemon Grapeseed Oil. Wherever you’d normally love a squeeze of citrus and use oil, Lemon takes care of both. Use it as a non-cholesterol alternative to dipping seafood and artichoke leaves, as a base for dips and lemon mayonnaise, or combined with Roasted Garlic Grapeseed Oil as an aioli. We loved the fresh lemon zest flavor of this oil so much, we tossed fruit salad in it and poured it over vanilla ice cream for a lemon-creamsicle effect.
• Rosemary Grapeseed Oil. Fresh rosemary is heavenly with poultry and lamb, roasted potatoes and vegetables. The is no exception: we brushed it on just about anything!

In fact, we spent an entire week brushing, daubing, marinating and sprinkling Salute Santé! flavored grapeseed oils on everything that crossed our path—even regular, lemon and chocolate pound cakes (yes to basil, lemon and rosemary, no to chili and garlic). Join our culinary travels in the next section.

Serving Suggestions

Here’s what we did with the oils, along with notes on some of the many recipes available on the Salute Santé! website (that we haven’t tried yet). One thing’s for sure: with a cabinet of these oils, you need never again worry about having fresh herbs in the house.

Breakfast

• Every day we cooked a different style of egg in a different type of oil, mixing and matching omelets, fried and scrambled eggs with whatever flavor we were in the mood for. Favorite creations include two poached eggs on toast, one dribbled with Basil, one with Chili; and hard-boiled eggs with ramekins of “dipping oil” (all flavors) and different colored sea salts.
• The company website, SaluteSante.com, has a recipe for scrambled eggs made with Chili Grapeseed Oil.

Lunch

• Every day we tried a different oil with red wine vinegar, in a salad topped with a different protein: chicken, grilled or poached salmon, chicken sausages, scallops and shrimp. All of the oils make wonderful vinaigrettes: we promise you’ll start eating more salads.
• The Basil, Lemon and Rosemary oils go well with a citrus salad—grapefruit and orange segments with red onion, atop greens. You can have it alone, with yogurt, or add any proteins from the previous bullet.
• Use the oils as a dressing for pasta salad, potato salad, cole slaw et al.
• The SaluteSante.com website has recipes for Basil Salad Dressing, Edible Flower Salad, Tomato Salad and Tricolor Bean Salad (photo at right).

Condiments

• Combine the oils—especially Chili and Lemon—with soy sauce as a nouvelle dip for sushi, sashimi or seafood.
• Make flavored mayonnaise. If you’ve never had homemade mayonnaise before, you will be thrilled at how wonderful mayonnaise tastes.
  Much commercial mayonnaise is made from grapeseed oil or soybean oil...plus egg yolks, lemon juice and/or vinegar, salt, sugar, optional seasonings like onion powder and preservative. Mayonnaise was invented in 1756 by the French chef of the Duc de Richelieu. After the Duc beat the British at Port Mahon, in the Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean off the coast of Spain, his chef created a victory feast. One dish was supposed  to include a sauce made of cream and eggs, but the chef realized that he had no cream. He substituted olive oil and created a new sauce, named Sauce Mahonnaise in honor of the Duc’s victory. Mayonnaise is different from salad dressing, which doesn’t contain egg yolks and generally has more sugar.
• Use the oils as a bread spread. Remember our “instant garlic bread” suggestion earlier? You can have instant basil bread, chili bread, lemon bread and rosemary bread—each as yummy. Just toast the bread and brush on the oil. If you have fresh herbs of any kind, snip them and sprinkle a few on top. You can sprinkle on grated cheese, too, and stick it under the broiler until it melts.

Cream of Winter Squash Soup Recipe

Ingredients: