Sunflower oil

Neutral at 180°C, so the chip tastes of potato and of nothing else.

Eastern Europe builds every salad on this. The oil contributes texture only.

Fried chicken needs a smoke point above the crust and no flavour under it.

Capsanthin is fat-soluble. Bloom it off the heat or it turns bitter fast.

Toast the seed back into the oil and it regains what refining removed.

Deep-fry, then dress. A blank fat lets the smoke stay the loudest note.

Sweat, do not colour. Nothing here competes with the allium sugar.

Confit it slowly: the oil carries lycopene out and gives nothing back.

Ukraine dresses with oil and herb and no acid at all. It still works.

Black bread, salt, a puddle of oil. A snack rather than a recipe.

Sharp brine is the only seasoning a fat this quiet will ever accept.

Warm the berry in it and the carotenoids bleed out orange and sour.

Same plant family. Steep the flower warm and the oil turns apple and hay.

Aster on aster: the petals stain the oil saffron-yellow and faintly bitter.