made in Spain and Turkey, walnut soups in
Mexico, coconut soups in Brazil, pecan and
peanut soups in the American South.
Nut Oils The oils of a number of nuts are
prized for their flavor — walnut oil and
coconut oil, for example — and several others
as ordinary cooking oils (peanut oil,
sunflower seed oil). Oils are extracted from
nuts by two different means. “Cold-pressed”
or “expeller-pressed” nut oils are made by
crushing the nut cells and forcing the oil out
with mechanical pressure. The nuts get hot
from the pressure and friction, but generally
don’t exceed the boiling point. Solvent-
extracted oils are made by dissolving the oil
out of the crushed nuts with a solvent at
temperatures around 300ºF/150ºC, then
separating the oil from the solvent. They are
more refined than pressed oils, having fewer
of the trace compounds that make oils both
flavorful and potentially allergenic (p. 455).