Notes on traditional oil-pressing, label literacy, and cooking the way it's always been done.
Which oil for the deep fry, which for the tempering spoon, and which stays raw on the plate - a plain guide to smoke points across four wood-pressed oils.
The words on an oil bottle can blur together at the shop shelf. Here is what wood-pressed, cold-pressed and refined actually describe about how the oil was made.
Groundnut, sesame or coconut? The right oil often shifts with the season. Here is how an old Tamil kitchen reads the calendar.
From the marachekku in Arani to your kadai, here is what actually makes wood-pressed groundnut oil a sensible everyday oil for the heart.
Refined oil is neutral by design. Wood-pressed oil carries the smell of the seed. Here is how to make the switch in your regular cooking without your dishes tasting suddenly different.
The wooden chekku turns slowly and stays cooler than a steel expeller. Here is why we hold on to that older, slower way of making oil in Arani.
From the morning oil massage to the practice of swishing oil at dawn, sesame oil sits quietly at the centre of Ayurvedic self-care. Here is how it is used, and where the claims end.
Groundnut, sesame or coconut? Which wood-pressed oil belongs in your kitchen depends less on trend and more on the food your family has always cooked.
Before you add a bottle to your cart, here are honest answers to the questions we hear most often about wood-pressed oil - from cloudiness to shelf life.
Sweet boxes come and go, but a well-built oil hamper lands in the one place every household actually uses daily - the kitchen. Here is how to put one together.
Refined blends and cheap fillers can hide behind honest-looking labels. Here is how to tell them apart from real marachekku oil at home.
On Karthigai Deepam, the smell of roasting sesame drifts from every kitchen in Arani. Here's how to make ellu urundai the old way, with a whisper of wood-pressed gingelly oil.
What actually happens inside a wood "chekku," and why low-temperature pressing keeps more of what's naturally in the seed.
A look at ICMR-NIN's visible-fat guidance, and how to translate it into a monthly grocery number.
FSSAI licence numbers, IS standards, and the claims worth checking before your oil goes into the cart.
Thonmai