Olive Oil

Olive oil is pressed from olives, and extra virgin is the top grade: cold extracted, unrefined and low in acidity, it keeps the fruity, grassy flavour of the fruit. In our oils and ghee department it sits beside the South Asian cooking oils for the Mediterranean and Middle Eastern dishes many families also cook, from hummus and fattoush to pasta and roast vegetables.

Extra virgin olive oil is at its best raw or over gentle heat: drizzled on salads and flatbreads, stirred through pasta, or used for a light sauté. It can be used for shallow frying, but its flavour fades at high temperatures, so for deep frying pakoras choose sunflower oil or rapeseed oil. Some cooks like a spoon of it in a lentil soup or a gentle tadka for dal.

Olive oil is one of the few cooking oils that tastes better fresh, so buy the size you will finish within a couple of months of opening. Keep it in a dark cupboard, never on the windowsill, and close the cap straight after pouring. KTC packs extra virgin olive oil in bottles and in tins for regular cooks. For another cold pressed oil with character, look at gingelly oil.