In the Philippines, we like to fry our foods quite a lot.  There’s fried fish, fried fish balls, fried chicken, fried pork rinds, fried lumpia….all of that frying leaves you with a lot of leftover cooking oil.  You can be sure of that.

We stored the used cooking oils in different jars, according to the foods you fried them in.  After you fry the chicken, you can then use the oil for frying fish.  Store that oil and the next thing you can use it for is stinky (and yummy!) dried fish or squid.

That way, you don’t need to keep buying gallons and jugs of the stuff.  But after two or three uses, the oil does acquire an unpleasant odor and taste. It isn’t rancid, just unpleasant.

If you are ever faced with this dilemna, remember three things:  paper towels or coffee filters and potato slices.

Straining your used oil through a paper towel folded twice over or through a coffee filter will rid you of the little particles in the oil.  You may need to filter more than once, but you can immediately see the difference in the oil’s color.

For those nasty smells, fry a few slices of potato in the used oil.  The potato will absorb all those odors and leave a better-smelling oil you can use all over again.  It really works, try it!