Performance of virgin olive oil and vegetable shortening during domestic deep-frying and pan-frying of potatoes

The performance of virgin olive oil and a commercial vegetable shortening was investigated during 10 successive pan-fryings of potatoes at 180 °C for a total period of 60 min and during 10 successive deep-fryings at 170 °C for a total period of 120 min. These are typical conditions of Greek domestic cooking. For both the oils tested the effect of pan-frying on K232, K268, K316, α-tocopherol, total polar artefacts, Rancimat induction times, octanoic acid formation and linoleic acid decomposition was worse than the effect of deep-frying on the same variables. The same was true for visible spectrum and total phenols in virgin olive oil. No systematic variations of oleic acid, refractive index and trans-isomers of fatty acids were detected. None of the oils reached the limit of 25–27% total polar artefacts. Both oils performed similarly during pan-frying, while virgin olive oil performed better during deep-frying. A very strong correlation between octanoic acid formation and total polar artefacts in the whole data set was observed.