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There is no substitute for mustard oil in Bengali cooking. Be it fried fish or potato stew or chutney for the last leaf, one cannot imagine anything without mustard oil. Hot rice is always flavored with mustard oil. But now the mustard oil that is bought from the market does not have that much flavor anymore.
Once upon a time, cooking in mustard oil would burn the eyes. Even if you smeared the oil on your body, your eyes would water. Now it does not have that quality anymore. Even pure mustard oil is mixed with adulteration. Have you ever checked whether the oil you are buying from the store or ordering online is pure or not?
According to a report in Anandabazar, ‘A research paper published by the National Library of Medicine says that palm oil is being mixed in to increase the density of mustard oil. Palm oil is being mixed in several brands of oil that cannot be seen. The price of oil mixed with palm oil is also low. That is why many people are buying it without looking.
The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) says that mixing palm oil with mustard oil for cooking spoils its quality. Cooking in that oil for a long time is bound to cause stomach poisoning. Consuming such oil will increase the level of bad cholesterol in the blood, heart disease will occur, and the kidneys may also fail. Complex diseases may occur in the liver.
Let's find out the ways to check whether the mustard oil used in cooking is adulterated or not -
Freezer test
Buy mustard oil, pour it into a bottle, and keep it in the refrigerator. Keep it in the refrigerator for 3-5 hours. After that, check whether any thick oil has accumulated at the bottom of the bottle. If palm oil or paraffin oil is mixed, it will go to the bottom of the bottle and accumulate. The color of that oil will also be different.
Smell test
You can also tell by smelling the smell. Mustard oil has a pungent smell. If the smell is less, then the mustard oil has a very strong smell. If you see a light, sweet fragrance coming from the bottle, then you need to fry it, it is adulterated.
Blotting Paper Test
Put a few drops of oil on a blotting paper and wait for 10 to 15 minutes. If it is pure mustard oil, it will leave a light stain. If it is adulterated oil, it will leave a dark black stain on the blotting paper.
There is another way to understand. Take two teaspoons of mustard oil in a bowl. This time, add a spoonful of butter to it. If, after some time, you see that the color of the oil has changed to red, then you will understand that the oil has been adulterated.
Source: Online/GFMM
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