How To Make Colored Cooking Oils For Your Kitchen
"fid":"542772","viewmode":"wysiwyg","fields":"format":"wysiwyg","type":"media","attributes":"alt":"Colored cooking oils","title":"Colored cooking oils","style":"border-bottom: 6px solid border-left: 6px solid margin: 8px float: left border-top: 6px solid border-right: 6px solid","class":"media-element file-wysiwyg"How to make colored cooking oils for the kitchen is not too hard. Before you embark on this fun project make sure you have some corn, canola or some colorless oil at home because it really does not matter what kind of oil you are using as long as its colorless. The next thing needed is a microwave friendly bowl, and lastly some oil based food dye. Now you must make sure the dye is oil based because if you buy the water based kind it will separate and bead in the oil. You will need a spatula or spoon for stirring. I have played around with coloring cooking oils quite a bit and I enjoy doing this to decorate my kitchen.
Take the oil of your choice and pour it into the bowl and heat it till it gets hot. This may take anywhere between 45 seconds to a minute depending upon how much oil you took. We get the oil hot so that the dye dissolves faster. The next step is to pour just a wee bit of the dye into the bowl and start stirring. This part is a little tricky as the dye does not dissolve in the oil right away, but if you keep stirring, slowly and eventually the color does start blending in. You just need to be patient with this process. You should start stirring while pouring the dye into the bowl. Oil based dye blends perfectly and does not separate, if you like the oil to take on a darker color, add some more of the dye and stir again.
Another great way to make colored oil is to use certain herbs or spice that impart their color in which they are dipped in. For instance take some dried whole red chilies, maybe about 5 or 6 large ones and drop them in a small bottle of canola oil. Shake and leave the bottle on a flat surface for a few days. The red chilies will infuse a gorgeous reddish orange color in the oil. If you like to use this oil for cooking then slightly bruise the chilies before dropping them in the bottle of oil so that they also impart their flavor. This oil in effect has now become chili oil and can not only be used for decorative purposes but also for giving away as a gift or cooking. I like to use chili oil whenever I am making some pan-asian food at home.
Now that you know how to make colored cooking oils, give it a try at home today. When you are done with this, try learning how to make herb infused oils.
Image Credit - flickr
