peanut oil in china: is it number #1 cooking oil?

[jenn]

The question really is what type of oil is used in most Chinese cooking in China. Is it peanut oil--which is what I generally use at home--or is it some other type of oil? And would there be a difference in a high end restaurant versus a street vender?

My curiousity relates to peanut allergies and the likelihood of sending an allergic person into distress were they to consume something prepared with peanut oil. If odds are good that everything in China is cooked in peanut oil, then I guess an allergic person should probably pack a lot to eat but if it is unusual because of cost well, then perhaps not.

Thanks!

[Gary Soup]

I believe that the most commonly used cooking oil in China is still rapeseed oil, the ancestor of Canola oil. Soy oil may be second. Don't think peanut oil is used that much, though please don't go by my word.

[jenn]

If rapeseed oil has a high smoking tempature and is fairly inexpensive then you are likely correct. I think in the US, rapeseed oil is not very easy to come by but peanut oil is which might explain its prevalence in Chinese restaurants in the US and in US cookbooks.

I certainly couldn't tell by taste when in China though the oil in use was clearly not mustard or olive.

Not to fear: no one will be eatting and dying--its really more for a story line.

thanks!

[boris_qd]

In the US rapeseed oil is also called Canola oil is is available everywhere (well everywhere I've lived).

[PBSF]

Peanut oil was once the primary oil used in Chinese restaurants in the US. The cost of peanut oil has risen so much the past 15 years or so it is no longer economically feasible. Plus there is the peanut allergy that didn't seem to be so prevalent years ago. The primary oil use in the States is soy. It is cheap cheap cheap, flavorless and has a high smoking point.
I agree with GarySoup that in China, rapeseed oil is used, but not as much as soy. I am sure there are places in China that still use peanut oil but it is not common.

[Gary Soup]

You may be right. Historically, cooking oil has been a very expensive ingredient in China; my wife was amazed, when she first came to the US, that cooking oil here is cheaper than soy sauce. Rapeseed oil was long the most plentiful and inexpensive in China, but as economic conditions have improved, soy oil may have gained precedence as it is considered a superior oil for cooking.

[Stack8]

I enjoy using peanut oil. When I can find one imported from China I'll buy it over Dukes or Lu Ana. Chick-Fil-A uses it 100%. Peanut allergies are a problem to only a very,very small precentage of the population. I also use soy oil as well as olivie oil. The peanut oil price in my area is about the same as extra virgin olive oil. But peanut oil takes the heat better.

[longhairuo]

I am Chinese.Peanut oil has the richest flavor in vegetable oil,so Cantonese cuisine choose it as main used oil.Rapeseed oil is the local produced oil in south China.In the past it is the most used oil in Sichuan, Guizhou,Yuannan,and other south provinces.It has a vador that north Chinese do not like. soy oil and peanut oil are the main cooking oil in the north.As for prices,peanut oil is the highest,soy is less,rapeseed is the cheapest.hign end restaurnt choose brand peanut oil,vender use none brand,mixed oil,usually no peanut oil,because of its price.

[LIuzhou Laowai]

I'm astonished by some of the answers here. Peanut oil is by far the most common cooking oil. I was in my local supermarket earler today and the oil section was 99% peanut oil.

[mbe]

I remembered this post and went (finally) to check at my local Hualian (like a kind of mini-supermarket). Peanut oil takes up at most 30% of the shelf space and is about 1/3 more expensive than the other soy/canola what-have-you oils/blends. The same sort of proportion holds for the Carrefour shelves.
Liuzhou Laowai where is your supermarket? It's interesting that they only carry the peanut oil.

[LIuzhou Laowai]

Liuzhou

[IHTJ]

Here is a list of oils I have seen used for cooking in restaurant kitchens in China:

Rapeseed oil(unrefined) Guizhou, Yunnan, Sichuan, and very surprisingly Xinjiang provinces

Rapeseed oil(refined) Yunnan Province

Palm oil in Jin Hong and Mengla in Yunnan province

Tea oil(made from the dried fruit--not the leaves--but from the same plant) Changde in Hunan Province

Lard in Yunnan, Hunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan, Guangxi, Jiangxi, Anhui, Hubei, etc

Duck fat in Jiang su, Guizhou, and Fuzhou Provinces

Yak fat in 1 restaurant in Lhasa in Tibet

Yak butter in Tibet(yes for cooking not just for flavoring the tea)

Whole cows butter in Xinjiang Province

Clarified cows butter in Kashgar in Xinjiang Province

Lamb fat in Gansu, Xinjiang, Qinghai Provinces

Peanut oil in Shandong, Heilongjiang, Guangdong, Liaoning, Jilin and a few others that I forget now.

Soybean oil and blends almost everywhere.

As far as using oils for flavoring and not cooking, I have seen sesame oil , mustard oil, green onion oil, sichuan peppercorn oil, 5 spice oil, 13 spice oil, Cao guo oil, bai kou oil, cao kuo oil( sorry I don't know the English for the last 3 but they are all spices),star anise oil, Indonesian long pepper oil, lemongrass oil, ginger oil, garlic oil, hot pepper oil(made hundreds and hundreds of different ways).

This is the ones I can remember now but I am sure I forgot a few.

[Xiao Yang]

Thanks, that's an awesome amount of information.

Cao guo, bai kou, and cao kuo may all be alternate names for cardamom. See this source:

http://alternativehealing.org/cao_guo...

[IHTJ]

Yes that picture is exactly bai kou. It is used in the 13 spice mixture of the Hui ethnic group and I have seen it used once in Ningbo ground up with a few other spices to sprinkle on the medium starch deep fried mini potatoes that I love.
Cao Guo is a larger more oval spice that is much darker on the outside and tastes like smoked meat on the outside and a cardamom flavor in the seeds inside. Also used in 13 spice mix and extensively in Yunnan foods of both the Yi and the Dai ethnic group.
Cao Kou, I have also heard it called dou rou kou, looks like a small dry brain. Again used in 13 spice mix, but I first encountered it in in the most unusual roasted lamb skewers I have ever tried. The owner of 2 table restaurant in a small suburb of eastern Urumqi ground his own version of 13 spice and added a good deal of tumeric and it came out tasting like curry. Then didn't grill it but cooked it in the Naan Keng (like a tandoori oven) instead. Really amazing! The only bad news is that that area has since been developed and I can't find that anywhere now:(

[Xiao Yang]

Thanks. I'm curious as to how you came upon all your far-flung experience of cooking oils. Does it extend to other cooking practices/ingredients across China? If you don't mind, can you drop me a line at shanghaigaryATgmailDOTcom? (Don't want to get too far off-topic here.)

[amyzan]

Jenn,
One other consideration for your story line's accuracy might be whether peanut oil ingestion would lead to anaphlyaxis. In the US, where much of the peanut oil is highly refined and processed, there is no peanut protein present to cause an allergic reaction. I don't know if the same processing methods are common in China, if peanut oil is commonly used, but it's not necessarily a given that someone with a peanut allergy will react to peanut oil.

[lalalea]

This is a super late reply, but I should post seeing as I am deathly allergic to peanuts and have been living in China for the past 2 years and have traveled all over the country previously. Peanut oil is definitely not the #1 cooking oil in restaurants in China, because it is expensive. However, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Hong Kong are an exception to this rule. The better restaurants in these Cantonese cities will use peanut oil and many other restaurants will use a mix of oils that includes peanut oil. Soybean oil is super popular now as opposed to five years ago, even in areas in southwest China where rapeseed oil used to be more popular. In northern China peanut oil is pretty rare, even in expensive restaurants. However, for the special preparation of certain foods peanut oil may be used. For example, some Beijing duck restaurants use peanut oil to make the thin wrappers.

If your friend is deathly allergic, he/she will have a very difficult time eating out safely even if you storm the kitchen and demand to see the bottle of oil used (as I have done many times). This is because oils are bought in bulk and usually transferred to other unnamed, or wrongly labeled , bottles, so no one knows for certain what oil is used. Much of the peanut oil in China is not the super-refined type that you find in America, so chances are your friend would have an allergic reaction.

Another problem is that the sauces added to dishes often have peanut oil in them or other peanut ingredients (just check out the sauce aisle labels in supermarkets here, if you can read Chinese). Then there is cross contamination in the kitchen, especially in the woks.

The biggest problem, however, is that you can't trust the kitchen staff to take your allergy concerns seriously. This is because very serious food allergies are nonexistent in China, so people are either disbelieving or not used to thinking about prevention as stringently as your friend would require. For example, if the chef adds some "hot oil" to your dish that is actually peanut oil infused with chili peppers, none of the staff would ever think to imagine that the "hot oil" is actually some other type of oil infused with something else. It's just "hot oil" and definitely not peanut oil to them. Futhermore, Chinese hospitals in general, even the big famous ones, are not equipped with the right stuff to deal with anaphylactic shock and will spend far too long diagnosing the problem. I have been allergic many times before, but luckily not enough to kill me. The Chinese hospitals I went to were no help whatsoever. However, Beiing, Shanghai and Hong Kong have a few large Western style hospitals that should know what to do.

Sorry if this sounds grim, but it's the truth. If your friend is feeling adventurous and has plenty of epi-pens and steroid pills, he/she could try going to a very small specialty restaurant or stand where they make one or two simple dishes (like soup noodles), where you can see the ingredients being used and can be sure that there isn't cross contamination going on. When I travel I usually bring my own pot and oil, befriend a small restaurant staff, and have them cook simple things for me with the ingredients I select from the kitchen. I don't think this is a possibility for someone who can't speak Chinese though.