British Cold-Pressed Extra Virgin Rapeseed Oil (Yorkshire / Cotswolds, England)

Aromatic profile

Culinary use

• When to add : both: a high smoke point for roasting and frying, plus a raw drizzle to finish
• Dosage : a tablespoon to dress, or enough to coat a tray for roasting
• Ideal pairings : roast potatoes (crisps harder than olive oil), salad dressings and vinaigrettes, drizzled over a Sunday roast carvery, homemade mayonnaise, dipping with crusty bread, roasting vegetables and chips
• Avoid with : delicate dishes where you want olive oil's bitterness, anything needing a strong peppery finish, deep frying where a cheap refined oil does the same job for less

The grain in detail

Cold-pressed rapeseed oil is England's quiet kitchen win, and it is nothing like the bland refined vegetable oil in the supermarket squeeze bottle. The good stuff is pressed cold from the seeds of Brassica napus, the same yellow-flowered crop that turns British fields gold every May, grown and bottled on single farms like Yorkshire Rapeseed Oil in Thixendale or Cotswold Gold in the Cotswolds. Cold pressing means the seed is crushed mechanically with no heat and no chemical solvent, the way good olive oil is made, which keeps the colour a deep golden green and the flavour intact: cut grass, toasted nut, a whiff of fresh hay, sometimes a green-apple top note. It is lighter and rounder than olive oil, with none of the peppery bitterness, so it slips into a vinaigrette or a homemade mayonnaise without bullying the other flavours. Here is the part that earns it a permanent place by the hob: the smoke point sits around 230 degrees Celsius, well above extra virgin olive oil's 190 or so, which means you can roast and fry hard with it and it crisps potatoes better than olive oil does. Nutritionally it is the local hero too, roughly half the saturated fat of olive oil and a good ratio of omega-3 to omega-6, though that is a bonus, not the reason to buy it. The catch worth knowing: cold-pressed and the cheap refined supermarket rapeseed oil are completely different products that happen to share a plant. Refined oil is solvent-extracted, deodorised and flavourless, fine for deep frying and nothing else. Pay for cold-pressed when you want the flavour and the colour; reach for plain refined when you are just filling a fryer.

History & origin

Rapeseed has been grown in Britain for centuries, long used for lamp oil and animal feed, but the cold-pressed culinary oil is a modern story. Around 2004 to 2008 a wave of British farmers, squeezed on commodity rapeseed prices, started cold-pressing their own crop and bottling it as a premium food oil. Yorkshire Rapeseed Oil began on the family farm at Thixendale in 2008; Cotswold Gold and others followed. Within a decade single-estate British rapeseed oil had moved from farm shops to chef's kitchens, marketed as the local answer to imported olive oil.

Indicative price

Reference format : 500 ml bottle — from $4.50 to $6.50 (median : $5.00).

Storage

A cool, dark cupboard away from the hob and sunlight, which turn it rancid faster than olive oil. Use within a few months of opening; the high omega-3 content means it does not keep forever.

Where to buy?

Tags

• England
• Yorkshire
• Cotswolds
• rapeseed oil
• cold-pressed
• Brassica napus
• British oil
• high smoke point

Frequently asked questions

How do you store Cold-Pressed Rapeseed Oil?

A cool, dark cupboard away from the hob and sunlight, which turn it rancid faster than olive oil. Use within a few months of opening; the high omega-3 content means it does not keep forever.

What dosage for Cold-Pressed Rapeseed Oil?

a tablespoon to dress, or enough to coat a tray for roasting

When should you add Cold-Pressed Rapeseed Oil in cooking?

It's best used both: a high smoke point for roasting and frying, plus a raw drizzle to finish.

What should you avoid pairing Cold-Pressed Rapeseed Oil with?

Avoid with: delicate dishes where you want olive oil's bitterness, anything needing a strong peppery finish, deep frying where a cheap refined oil does the same job for less.