Which oils do chefs like to cook with?

From frying to roasting, salads and finishing touches, these are the cooking oils and fats you should be using for every situation.

BUTTER

It's probably treasonous for a French chef to disdain butter. But you don't have to alert the Culinary Police, as Guillaume Brahimi is genuinely a fan of cooking with it.

"Butter enhances the flavours and texture of a dish, it is creamy and tastes absolutely delicious," says the chef behind Guillaume, Four In Hand by Guillaume and Bistro Guillaume (which recently opened in Sydney, after launching in Perth and Melbourne).

"Butter is a great way to round out the flavours in a dish and adds great flavour. You can use it to finish vegetables, sauce, steak," he says. "I especially love using butter to roast chickens with, as well as roasting potatoes - as they give them the ultimate crunch."

He admits that a dish that really showcases this ingredient is his signature Paris Mash, which has been a longtime fixture on his menus (even going back to the Bennelong days). "I probably shouldn't say how much butter is thrown in there, though!"

In fact, Brahimi's dependence on the dairy product is quite strong. Ask him whether he'd recommend leaving butter out of anything and he is stumped. "I find it hard not to find a reason to add butter as it is used in most of my dishes."

So is there a particular brand of butter that the chef likes to use?

"At Guillaume we make our own butter but aside from that, locally I like Myrtleford [now known as King Valley Dairy] and for a French variety, I wouldn't go past Bordier – the king of butter in France."

PEANUT OIL

Peanut oil is a big staple in Asian cooking, so it's no surprise that chef Sarah Chan uses it rigorously at The Galeries outpost of Lotus. It will also play a role in the "fry-friendly" menu for the next Lotus venue, Papa Bo Min, which will serve crispy five-spiced pork knuckle, fried stuffed chinese doughnut with sesame prawn and deep-fried red braised quail.

"Peanut oil has a high smoke point - you can deep fry at a very high temperature (400-450 degrees) when using peanut oil, resulting in a fried product that is crispy on the outside and moist on the inside," she says. "It's also low in saturated fat and high in polyunsaturated fat and monounsaturated fat, which makes it healthier than frying with other oils or animal fat."

While the neutral nature of the oil makes it handy for deep-frying food without obliterating its flavour, she also recommends it for stir-frying, roasting and making salad dressings.

So are there certain things you shouldn't use peanut oil for?

"Baking or anything that requires a neutral flavour," she says. "I also wouldn't use it for a nut allergy guest, even though some studies shows that most individuals with peanut allergy can safely consume peanut oil - just to be safe!"

She recommends using the Knife brand, because of its "wonderful peanut flavour", as well as Royles, which is Australian made and supplied by Hong Australia.

GHEE

As the chef behind subcontinent-inspired eateries Bang Street Food and Trunk Road, Tapos Singha is a champion of ghee (clarified butter).

"I love using ghee in cooking, especially vegetarian dishes. It adds lots of flavour and aids as a substitute for animal fat," he says.

"Ghee is the secret ingredient to Bang's pilau rice," he reveals. "It stops the rice from sticking together and adds a rich flavour to an otherwise ordinary bland staple."

He also uses it in the veg korma, dahl and sabji - as well as desserts (like the rum drunk doughnut). He's experimenting with smoking turkey with ghee. And clarified butter is also the key ingredient in many culinary tricks.

In Bengali cooking, he uses burnt ghee with whole spices (panch phoron) to finish vegetable dishes. "It's our version of a French beurre noisette," he says.

It's common to brush some ghee on naan to keep it moist or add it to meat, to give it "that finished shine".

From a culinary standpoint, he thinks it's better than extra virgin olive oil, because it's not as strong on the palate. "The flavour is more neutral than other oils," says Singha. "And its high smoke point makes it safer to cook with and consume if heated at a high temperature. Also, because it is clarified, the dairy content is removed which means it preserves longer than butter."

That said, it shouldn't be used in everything. It's too highly saturated for dressings, he points out. "You should also steer clear of using it in rich meat curries, because they're cooked with attached fat which makes them rich enough."

At Bang Street Food, he makes his own ghee in house. But he also uses ghee from Sharma's Kitchen, which is produced locally in Sydney.

EXTRA VIRGIN OLIVE OIL

Mike McEnearney's elegantly simple food was designed to be cooked, dressed and finished with extra virgin olive oil.

And the Kitchen By Mike and No. 1 Bent Street chef is such a fan of the ingredient that he even uses it in a tonic, too.

"I juice citrus with oregano and chilli and shake it with the same amount in olive oil and drink it before I go to bed," he says.

While its high antioxidant count is why he says it is so "very, very good for you", McEnearney admits that olive oil isn't built for all purposes.

"Some very delicate dishes or cuisines don't work particularly well with olive oil; Chinese is an obvious one. I certainly wouldn't be wok-frying in it as the flavour is too strong and will overwhelm the delicate flavours," he says. "It works better with robust rustic food from where the olive oil is from."

At his restaurants, though, it's his standard oil. "I finish the majority of my dishes with it and use it for my dressings. It is very versatile and at the moment I particularly like it drizzled over my roast Jerusalem artichokes, beets, blood orange and harissa salad."

For finishing dishes, he recommends Joseph's first-run extra virgin olive oil, made by winemaker Joe Grilli in Willunga and McLaren Vale and available from Simon Johnson. "Like Joseph's wine, it speaks of where it is from, has a lovely spice note that doesn't overpower food, is delicious as a pouring oil and is wonderful used in salads or finishing meat. The colour also looks spectacular on the plate."

In fact, he's been using since the Joseph oil since '90s ("the variety was the foothills oil that came in the skinny bottle that Joseph used to bottle his frontignac wine in; it was very punchy and had a really incredible golden colour") and its champions also include chefs Neil Perry ("Year in, year out Joe makes some of the very best Australian oil produced") and David Lovett (who will use it in everything from pasta to a simple olive oil cake).