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Now it's olive oil and food pairing

A press release in my inbox this morning announced a new range of aromatic olive oils designed to pair with different kinds of food. They have been devised by the world famous Ferran Adria of El Bulli in conjunction with the Spanish olive oil producer Borges.

Flavours include Olive Oil with Four Peppers – "a mixture of peppers in two stages of ripening (white and black) with Szechwan pepper and pink peppercorns" which is designed to be paired with meats, fish, seafood, crustaceans, vegetables and rice (i.e. almost everything FB), Olive Oil with Black Olives – a combination of freshly crushed black olives and olive oil which is recommended with salads, cheese, vegetables and fish and Olive Oil with Soy & Ginger – for Chinese and Japanese-style rice dishes, salads, fish and light meats.

It’s a brilliantly clever idea but when you stop and think for a moment you’re quite likely, if you’re a keen cook, to have these other flavouring ingredients in your kitchen. The oils, which are stocked by Harvey Nichols, cost 6.50 for 200ml which works out at a hefty 32.50 a litre. It would be better to buy a good quality oil with a fine flavour of its own that would do for pretty well everything and make your own fresh additions to a dish.

At a time when there’s a fair bit of belt-tightening going on do we really need a whole cupboard of different oils? Especially with hitherto olive oil-free Chinese and Japanese food.

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