<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Geir Widar:
As some of you may have noticed, I have just had my first run trying to cold smoke.
It was successful, and I'm already looking for other stuff to cold smoke.
Now, here in Norway winter's ahead, and i cant't smoke anything when temperatures are lower than 32 F. Of course I could add some sort of heat unit to my WSM. I digress- has anyone tried to cold smoke oil? Let's say olive oil, or just plain sunseed oil? Does the oil pick up the smoke flavour, or is this something that it is a waste to try?
If I could do that, I could sprinkle some smoked oil on different meats and still get some smoke flavour. Anyone? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>
This is an interesting topic. One that hits home for me. I like oils for reuse after they have been infused after cooking something. Different say from stuffing an aromatic of various sorts into them and letting them sit for a period of time.
One long learned habit of mine from cooking with my italian/spanish/lithuaninan heritage is to save the oil that has been flavored from specific things. Due to the flavors that are infused during the process.
So case in point. "Hot" Oil. A traditional Italian way to preserve hot peppers, long hots, bananas, etc is to dry them. You basically thread them up in a hank and hang them to dry out. I do this whether I have garden grown or resort to store bought in season to keep them in stock.
The dried peppers are then pulled as needed and tossed into high temp oil until they just turn color/puff and removed and drained. Salted then eaten with dinner or plain or however you like them. They have become my "chips" so to speak. A nice dried long hot red prepped this way and salted goes with all kind of things. You can crush them too, etc.
Anyway - I always save the oil or some of it to cook/baste with or mix with other things. This is very similar to Sechuan Hot Peppr oil you buy in a store, but better. One simple but great use is to cook your eggs for breakfast with this oil.
Now - to the point. You can do the same with smoke peppers of any sort. You get the same result, but with the smoke flavor. Most excellent. Minor point is that this gives you smoked oil flavor, along with some heat.
A little off point, but a faster less complicated solution perhaps than cold smoking the oil and the act of infusion would be more complete than hoping that prolonged coexistence with just smoke will thoroughly penetrate. Just a thought.