Italian Goes Local with Bertolli

If given a bottle of olive oil, what would you make with it? A serving of slick aglio olio? Or a bowl of salad with olive oil and balsamic vinegar dressing? What about using olive oil to cook char kway teow or fried rice? If you never thought of using olive oil for cooking Asian food, well it's time that you do, because now there's a brand that offers a range of olive oil that's suitable for cooking any types of dishes, including stir-fry method. And it even gets better with a brand ambassador looking as smoke as him...

Antonio says Ciao!

It’s a common misconception that Olive Oil is not suitable for stir-frying. The objective of the #ItalianGoesLocal campaign is to spread the word of the joys of cooking local stir-fry dishes with Bertolli Extra Light olive oil and encourage you to try it out for yourselves! If you recall a few months ago, my friend Antonio was visiting Jakarta on his journey discovering the rich culinary scene in a few places around South East Asia. I showed him to a few not-so-mainstream places around town, from the fish market to painting batik and coffee cupping. I've published the story in a blogpost, here.

Just in case you're not familiar with cooking ingredients, Bertolli is an Italian food brand with its core product, the extra virgin olive oil, which comes in 3 types for different uses: Extra Light and Classico (mild), which are suitable for high heat cooking and Original (rich), which is recommended for cold dishes such as salad or bread dips.

Some local dishes such as Udang Balado and Plecing Kangkung (water spinach stir fry), which Antonio cooked using Bertolli

As Bertolli brand ambassador, Antonio recently popped by Jakarta again, to host the pop up booth set at one of the most visited family shopping malls in South Jakarta, Pondok Indah Mall. At first sight, I'm impressed at the nicely decored booth and the friendly sales promotion girls who offered visitors to sample Antonio's cookings using Bertolli extra virgin olive oil. At the booth, visitors could purchase Bertolli products at special price too.

Antonio used Bertolli Extra Light olive oil to cook a serving of Black Pepper Beef. The Extra Light variant is suitable to be heated in high temperature, which is just perfect for cooking stir-fry dishes which often involve fire-blazing and wok-charring stunts. Somehow, the taste of the black pepper beef that Antonio cooked was better than the ones I had at restaurants (those are often very greasy and leave this uncomfortably oily feeling in the throat). Was it the meat quality or the seasoning, I'm not quite sure, but definitely it barely tasted oily at all!

It was great to see you again, Antonio! Please come back again soon and make me some mean Black Pepper Beef stir fry LOL! So, have you stocked up your kitchen with Bertolli yet? =)

Follow Antonio's fun journey as Bertolli brand ambassador on his social media:

Facebook: Antonio Travels

Instagram: @AntonioTravels

This post was supported by Bertolli Asia (www.facebook.com/BertolliAsia). However, all opinions expressed in this blog are my personal and are not affected by any kind of sponsorships.

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