Cooking Fats and Oils
Cooking Ingredients

Animal fats and vegetable oils are regarded as essential ingredients the world over, but in Asia they play a particularly important role, largely because so much of the food is fried. Animal fat or lard was historically the medium for frying (and remains so in China), but vegetables oils are valued because they can be heated to much higher temperatures without smoking, something which is essential for quick stir-frying, in which a high degree of heat is absolutely essential. Similarly, most deep-fried food also requires a high temperature in order to achieve the desired crispness.

Oil can be extracted from sources as diverse as radishes and poppies. Rape seed (canola) oil was a popular cooking medium in China until the Portuguese introduced peanuts during the 16th  century. It was not immediately appreciated that the new crop could be a source of oil but by the 19th century peanut oil was firmly established throughout Asia, a position it continues to hold despite competition from corn oil. In Japan, sesame oil originally held sway, but Japanese cooks soon appreciated that cooking with a mixture of sesame oil and peanut oil gave better results, especially when cooking their beloved tempura (a deep-fried vegetable and seafood introduced by Portuguese missionaries), as the mixed oil could be heated to higher temperatures without smoking.

Coconut and palm oil are common in South-east Asia, although both are less popular than they once were, as they are high in saturated fats.

Fats and oils all have their own distinct aroma and flavor; some are quite strong, other fairly mild. Both lamb and beef fat, for instance are more strongly flavored than lard (pork fat) or chicken fat, while peanut oil and rape seed oil have more taste than soya, cottonseed or sunflower oils.

In East, fats and oils are mainly used as a cooking medium, but are sometimes ingredients in their own right, In some Chinese dishes, for instance, pure lard is often stirred in shortly before serving, much as Western cooks would use cream.

Butter

This is a delicious solid fat churned from milk.  It's used in baking, frying, and as a spread on toast and muffins.  Recipes that call for butter in most better cookbooks are referring to unsalted butter = sweet cream butter = sweet butter.  Salted butter doesn't spoil as readily (the salt serves as a preservative).