You know the saying: Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. But in cooking, that’s not always the case. Sometimes there’s just hot oil.
All fats, including the oils you typically use in the kitchen, have a smoke point, the point at which they will begin to produce smoke. Specifically, it’s when anything in the oil — fats, proteins, sugars, other organic material — starts to interact with oxygen and burn, says Joseph Provost, a chemistry and biochemistry professor at the University of San Diego who co-wrote “The Science of Cooking: Understanding the Biology and Chemistry Behind Food and Cooking.”
