BS: What on earth is 'Cooking Spray'?

Subject: What on earth is 'Cooking Spray'?
From: GUEST,cook
Date: 10 Oct 01 - 06:53 PM

Sorry if this is really obvious, but I live in England, and I've never heard of it.

I quite often look at recipe sites on the web, and I come across lots references to 'cooking spray'

What is it? Doesn't sound to pleasant to me.

Grateful for any enlightenment

Thanks

cook

Subject: RE: BS: What on earth is 'Cooking Spray'?
From: Jeri
Date: 10 Oct 01 - 06:59 PM

Oil in an aerosol can. Some of them can be pretty good - olive oil flavored with garlic, for example. Some of them may be somewhat questionable.

Subject: RE: BS: What on earth is 'Cooking Spray'?
From: wysiwyg
Date: 10 Oct 01 - 07:02 PM

For dry-frying. Or a spritz on a baking sheet.

Supposed to let you use less fat and get an even coating. Best in muffin tins.

To do without, use the old dab-of-butter-on-a-paper- towel trick and smear it around.

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: What on earth is 'Cooking Spray'?
From: catspaw49
Date: 10 Oct 01 - 07:03 PM

It's an aerosol mix of various chemicals which you spray in your kitchen to repel health food nuts and keep them out of your kitchen so you can prepare meals with some reasonable semblance of taste as opposed to boiled tofu.

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: What on earth is 'Cooking Spray'?
From: DougR
Date: 10 Oct 01 - 07:06 PM

I use it a lot. The olive oil spray can. Spray pans, crockpot, skillet, and other cooking utensils before cooking in them and they are easier to clean after use. Spray the pan your are using to boil eggs, potatos, etc. and the water won't boil over.

Sometimes it's used instead of butter or other fats to saute things to reduce fat.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: What on earth is 'Cooking Spray'?
From: SINSULL
Date: 10 Oct 01 - 07:06 PM

PAM is the most popular brand. OK for baking but makes a lot of smoke if you try to saute in it. Or am I doing something wrong? And I am the only one who is convinced that some day I will blow the whole kitchen up when the oily spray hits the open flame and burns back to the can? Sorry to digress.

Subject: It's garbage!!!
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 10 Oct 01 - 07:11 PM

Like a doctor once told me regarding the butter vs margerine thing... it applies to cooking spray crap as well...

Butter will make you fat... fat is easy to treat... Just get yer ass off the sofa once in a while... Margerine will give you cancer... cancer is not so easy to treat... cancer treatment involves poisoning your body and hoping that the cancer dies befor you do...

It's your choice, but we don't have magerine or cooking spray in our house anymore...

Subject: RE: BS: What on earth is 'Cooking Spray'?
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 10 Oct 01 - 07:17 PM

It's not a fat. PAM, which is the most popular, is a mix of Canola oil (a low-saturated-fat oil that used to be called rapeseed oil) and lethicin (derived from soybeans).

Subject: RE: BS: What on earth is 'Cooking Spray'?
From: Nancy King
Date: 10 Oct 01 - 07:26 PM

Jeez, Sinsull, I hope your fire insurance is paid up. Spray it in a cool pan, please, before you put the pan on the stove. I never tried to saute with it; don't think I will. I use it in my rice cooker, so the rice doesn't stick to the pan. Useful stuff.

Cheers, Nancy

Subject: RE: BS: What on earth is 'Cooking Spray'?
From: Mrs.Duck
Date: 10 Oct 01 - 07:38 PM

Cooking spray is and has been for some time on sale in all British supermarkets so it shouldn't be difficult to find. Spry were about the first about 15 years ago>

Subject: RE: BS: What on earth is 'Cooking Spray'?
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 10 Oct 01 - 07:47 PM

I use olive oil to brown onions and meat when I make stews or cook meat in a pan. For pancakes, etc., I smear a little butter, as WYSIWYG suggests. Clinton, look at the Mayo Clinic site. They have some recipes in which they use butter; newer research shows that butter is low in the "bad chloresterol" and high in the "good," so its use is no longer discouraged.
A friend of mine applied Pam to a hot pan and got called out, forgeting to turn off the stove. When he came back, the fumes had killed his parrot. I would never use these substances.
Haven't seen olive oil in a spray bottle yet. Some margerines are OK but others are witches' brews. Our baking sheets usually are seasoned enough by previous baking, but rubbing with a little butter is enough.

Subject: RE: BS: What on earth is 'Cooking Spray'?
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 10 Oct 01 - 07:53 PM

Mayo Clinic... that's funny!!!

Hehehehehe

Subject: RE: BS: What on earth is 'Cooking Spray'?
From: Nemesis
Date: 10 Oct 01 - 08:41 PM

Sinsull! (ROFLMAO!)

I reckon you've been watching too many James Bond movies and have a secret alta-ego that emerges in the kitchen! (*G*) Oh, you know - the one where he burns up the snake with the flaming aerosol can!

Hille

Subject: RE: BS: What on earth is 'Cooking Spray'?
From: catspaw49
Date: 10 Oct 01 - 09:24 PM

No Hille, she doesn't....and I am about to chastize her ass (and yours for that matter) for NOT reading the friggin' can!!! PAM is flammable, make no mistake about it. Most aerosols are flammable owing to the propellant source (one of Clinton's vile and foamy chemicals). Using this stuff around a gas stove without thinking ain't a good idea. NO JOKE HERE.......Read the can.

On the other hand, some things are flammable or explosive only under "adverse" conditions.......Click Here for Pop Tarts

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: What on earth is 'Cooking Spray'?
From: Pelrad
Date: 10 Oct 01 - 09:30 PM

You can make your own cooking spray by putting your choice of oils into a small plant sprayer. Preferably one that has not previously had anything but water in it.

Subject: RE: BS: What on earth is 'Cooking Spray'?
From: Sorcha
Date: 10 Oct 01 - 10:21 PM

You oughta see what the stuff does on lit gas grills............whoooeee! Mr. did that just once. Now he sprays it on the cold grill!

Subject: RE: BS: What on earth is 'Cooking Spray'?
From: rangeroger
Date: 10 Oct 01 - 10:28 PM

Aren't you supposed to use Pam on a skillet before frying Spam?

Pam the Spam in the pan.

Spaw, how in the hell do you find those things? Is that the same guy who poured the LOx on the barbecue?

rr

Subject: RE: BS: What on earth is 'Cooking Spray'?
From: M.Ted
Date: 11 Oct 01 - 02:17 AM

Oil is fat, and, even without spraying, is also very flammable--You can buy a special oil sprayer in most in the kitchen section of most department stores--it creates a much finer mist than the plant sprayers or the aerosols that you buy in the drug store--

Subject: RE: BS: What on earth is 'Cooking Spray'?
From: Nemesis
Date: 11 Oct 01 - 06:49 AM

Ooooooops! Sorry, Spaw! Heck and I got my Girl Guide Fire Fighters too :(.

UK Tip - Lakeland plastics sell all these gadgets - sprayers, splatter guards, kitchen fire extinguishers. Meself, I use oven chips! Only 5% fat if you believe the blurb....

Subject: RE: BS: What on earth is 'Cooking Spray'?
From: Hollowfox
Date: 11 Oct 01 - 09:25 AM

Oven chips?

Subject: RE: BS: What on earth is 'Cooking Spray'?
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 11 Oct 01 - 09:46 AM

It is good for "huffing."

Spray it (PAM) into a plastic bag and inhale deeply a half dozen times. Not good for the brain, but it produces and interesting ether type high.

Subject: RE: BS: What on earth is 'Cooking Spray'?
From: MMario
Date: 11 Oct 01 - 10:13 AM

some brands use CO2 for propellent -

Subject: RE: BS: What on earth is 'Cooking Spray'?
From: GUEST,bbc at work
Date: 11 Oct 01 - 11:35 AM

I only & always use it for the pan on which I broil meat. Makes for much easier clean-up.

bbc

Subject: RE: BS: What on earth is 'Cooking Spray'?
From: Bert
Date: 11 Oct 01 - 01:35 PM

CO2 works for Gargoyle.

Subject: RE: BS: What on earth is 'Cooking Spray'?
From: DougR
Date: 11 Oct 01 - 02:43 PM

Pelrad: thanks for that tip!

Subject: RE: BS: What on earth is 'Cooking Spray'?
From: GUEST,Tone d' F
Date: 11 Oct 01 - 04:20 PM

The idea is that you use two or three sqirts and reduce the amount of oil (chloresterol) you consume, doesn't work you just get RSI from pressing the button a lot

I bought my last one from Sainsbury's about three years ago and threw it away about a month ago hardly used

Subject: RE: BS: What on earth is 'Cooking Spray'?
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 11 Oct 01 - 05:43 PM

Sorry, MTed.

Fat is saturated oil; oil is not fat (unless it's saturated).

Subject: RE: BS: What on earth is 'Cooking Spray'?
From: Daystar
Date: 11 Oct 01 - 05:59 PM

Dont know much about cooking spray but got a cat called cooking fat at three in the morning

Subject: RE: BS: What on earth is 'Cooking Spray'?
From: mousethief
Date: 11 Oct 01 - 06:27 PM

Well, Dick Greenhouse, actually it looks like "fat" can go either way. From Merriam-Webster online:

b : any of numerous compounds of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen that are glycerides of fatty acids, are the chief constituents of plant and animal fat, are a major class of energy-rich food, and are soluble in organic solvents but not in water c : a solid or semisolid fat as distinguished from an oil

your definition is C, I take it; but B is also an acceptible use of the word, and it says nothing about saturation.

Alex

Subject: RE: BS: What on earth is 'Cooking Spray'?
From: DougR
Date: 12 Oct 01 - 01:45 AM

Yep, Dick, I think Alex is right. There is more than one type of fat. Maybe we are talking semantics here?

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: What on earth is 'Cooking Spray'?
From: GUEST,MudWeasel
Date: 12 Oct 01 - 04:54 PM

Gotta butt in here. The semantic difference is looking at it from a chemical perspective the only difference between oil and fat is the fatty acid molecule length, and oils can be said to be a subset of fats, i.e. fats with a melting point less than room temperature are liquids, usually known as oils.

I got a degree in chemistry so that I could be a web designer and musician... ;-)

Gargoyle, I hope you're kidding about huffing that stuff. I have a better idea than most of exactly what's in there, and it ain't pretty.

Biochem note:
Huffing Carbon Dioxide won't do anything but make you hyperventilate (maybe in extreme cases, pass out.)
Carbon monoxide will kill ya dead dead dead.

OK, that's my over-educated inflated chemistry rant for today.

-MudWeasel

Subject: RE: BS: What on earth is 'Cooking Spray'?
From: rangeroger
Date: 12 Oct 01 - 07:12 PM

Knowing that Garg has huffed Pam sure gives me better insight into his mental status.

rr

Subject: RE: BS: What on earth is 'Cooking Spray'?
From: 53
Date: 12 Oct 01 - 10:29 PM

how do you fix lemon chicken? with pam, and does she have a sister? bob