Gourmet Spray

A simple pump and your favorite olive oil turns the oil into über-PAM®

When PAM® first made its appearance on grocery store shelves back in the 1960s my mom was certainly an early adopter. It piqued her natural attraction to fun-new-food-items, but mostly it eliminated the ornery chore of greasing the cookie sheet for the endless chocolate chip cookies she made back in the day. Simple! Just spray it on! Oh, and by the way, PAM® stands for “Product of Arthur Meyerhoff,” its inventor. Yep.

I have resisted cooking spray for decades. Just can’t really see where it would be needed. A couple of years ago, however, I succumbed to one that was labeled “Organic Cooking Spray Extra Virgin Olive Oil” — all the right buttons pushed. The ingredient list kept putting me off, though: organic extra virgin olive oil, yes, but also organic grain alcohol, soy lecithin, and propellant. Now I’m not accustomed to propellant in food, because isn’t that something that pushes something else? When does that ever need to be in food? Alas, that same can still languishes on the shelf. In fact, I think I’ll go in there right now and throw it out.

Spraying and food don’t usually go together, unless you are a Easy Cheese® person. Good news, though! I finally brought home an olive oil mister, and I’ve been falling in love with it ever since.

The olive oil sprayer works without propellant. The lid acts as an air pump, pulling air into the chamber and creating enough pressure to force the oil through the fine mist sprayer. The Cuisipro (under $20) recommends filling the container 1/3 full and pumping the lid 12 to 15 times, or until it becomes difficult to depress. The sprayer will work for 15 seconds or so, adequate to oil a pan, coat vegetables, or flavor salad greens. If you haven’t finished your task, just pump it up again.

This is a Cuisipro sprayer, easy to fill and clean and is well-constructed

Leaving the contents “pressurized” may wear out the sprayer seal quicker than necessary. Be sure to loosen the sprayer top to release the pressure after using it. I find that twisting the top back on rather than a straight down push keeps from adding pressure before putting it away.

What do I use it for? I like to “rub” vegetables lightly with olive oil before grilling or roasting them, but it’s a nicer task with the mister. I think I might be using less oil, too. Here I’ve made the difficult job of lightly oiling kale by a quick spray with the mister.

Rinse and pat dry the kale, lightly spray with olive oil, and sprinkle with salt. Shown here is Tuscan kale (also called Cavolo Nero, Lacinato kale, Dinosaur or Dino kale) and Purple kale

Roast kale in a 275°F oven for about 25 minutes, or until it is crispy and holds its shape. This makes a great cocktail snack. Purple kale, which has a thicker, stringier spine, can be cut into ribbons.  First cut out the spine, stack the leaves and cut crosswise into strips, arrange them haphazardly on a baking sheet, mist with olive oil and sprinkle with salt. Roast, tossing the strips midway through cooking, until crunchy, about 20 minutes. They make a nice garnish for soup or pasta.

The Tuscan kale works best if you want to cook whole leaves since the spine is very narrow and not too stringy, though I've used some younger purple kale leaves here, split down the middle

Tagged as: Appetizers, Tools, Vegetables