Dussehra is twenty days away.
Which means the festive cooking has already begun. In kitchens across India this week, someone’s mother or grandmother is making the first batch of something a test run of chakli to see if the proportions are right, a small halwa to mark the end of the monsoon, the first mathri of the season to go with evening chai.
The big batches come later. The decisions about what goes into them are being made right now.
One of those decisions the one nobody talks about in any festive cooking guide is the oil.
Something Your Grandmother’s Chakli Had That Yours Probably Doesn’t
This is not nostalgia for nostalgia’s sake. It is a specific, traceable difference.
Traditional Indian festive snacks chakli, murukku, mathri, namak pare, besan sev were fried in cold-pressed groundnut oil across most of South and Central India. In coastal regions, coconut oil was the festive frying medium. In parts of North India, mustard oil played this role. The snacks were designed around these oils. Their flavour profiles, their textures, their shelf lives across two to three weeks of festive gifting all of it was calibrated to a specific fat.
Refined palmolein and refined sunflower oil became the default festive frying medium over the past three to four decades because they were cheaper, had a neutral flavour, and had a high smoke point that allowed continuous commercial frying. For home cooks, they became the default because that is what was on the shelf.
The swap changed the taste. Not dramatically not in a way you would notice in a single bite. But in the way that a chakli fried in cold-pressed groundnut oil has a depth that the same recipe in refined palmolein does not. The dough absorbs the oil differently. The crust develops with more character. The aftertaste is cleaner because the fat has not already partially oxidised before it reached the pan.
Your grandmother’s chakli tasted different from yours. Same recipe. Same hands. Different oil.
The Science of Why Festive Frying Deserves Better Oil
Frying is one of the most chemically demanding things you do with cooking oil. High heat, sustained over time, causes rapid oxidation of fatty acids particularly the polyunsaturated ones. The compounds produced by this oxidation include aldehydes, ketones, and acrolein substances that not only affect flavour but have documented effects on cellular health when consumed regularly.
Refined oils enter the frying pan already damaged. The industrial process that makes them clear and neutral temperatures above 200°C, chemical bleaching, deodorising degrades the polyunsaturated fatty acids before the oil ever reaches your kitchen. When you then heat that already-compromised oil for frying, you are accelerating a degradation process that was already underway.
Wood-pressed groundnut oil enters the frying pan intact. Its fatty acids have not been pre-damaged. Its natural Vitamin E, which acts as an antioxidant and slows oxidation under heat, is still present. Its smoke point approximately 160°C for genuine cold-pressed groundnut oil is adequate for most home festive frying, which happens at medium to medium-high heat rather than the sustained commercial temperatures that require more refined alternatives.
The oil lasts longer in the pan before degrading. The food absorbs less oxidised fat. The flavour compounds from the oil contribute positively to the final product rather than sitting neutrally behind it.
Festive Cooking by Oil A Practical Map
Not all festive preparations need the same fat, and matching the oil to the dish is one of the simplest ways to improve the festive kitchen.
Chakli, murukku, mathri, namak pare wood-pressed groundnut oil. These are the traditional frying mediums for these snacks across their regions of origin. The slightly nutty depth of groundnut oil suits these savoury preparations in a way that neutral refined oil simply does not. Use medium heat, do not crowd the oil, and the results are visibly different.
Halwa and sweet preparations wood-pressed coconut oil or ghee. The natural sweetness of coconut oil’s fatty acid profile suits halwa in a way that is distinct from ghee but equally traditional in coastal and South Indian festive cooking. For suji halwa, moong dal halwa, and singhara halwa during Navratri fasting, coconut oil is both more Saatvik and more flavourful than refined alternatives.
Besan laddoo and dry sweet preparations ghee primarily, with groundnut oil for light frying where needed. Ghee is non-negotiable for the roasting stage of besan laddoo nothing replicates its flavour in that application. Cold-pressed groundnut oil can supplement for preparations that require a lighter fat.
Tadkas and tempering for festive rice and dal preparations wood-pressed sesame oil or coconut oil. The aromatic compounds in cold-pressed sesame oil sesamol, sesamin, sesaminol bloom in a hot tadka in a way that contributes a depth to festive rice dishes and accompaniments that refined oil cannot approach.
The Gifting Logic
Festive sweets and snacks are not just for the household. They leave the kitchen as gifts distributed to neighbours, taken to offices, sent to relatives. They carry the reputation of the maker.
A batch of chakli made in cold-pressed groundnut oil has a shelf stability that matches its flavour advantage. The intact antioxidants in the oil slow rancidity in the finished product. Cold-pressed festive snacks stored in airtight tins at room temperature hold their flavour and texture for two to three weeks the duration of the festive season without the stale, slightly off taste that snacks fried in refined oil tend to develop within ten to twelve days.
This is not a minor consideration when a batch of mathri is being prepared on October 15 and expected to still taste good when it reaches a relative’s home on Diwali in November.
The Decision That Precedes Everything Else
Every festive cooking guide tells you what to make. Which recipes, which proportions, which order to prepare things in, how to store them, how to package them for gifting.
None of them tell you what to make them in.
That decision precedes all the others. The oil is in every preparation the frying medium, the tempering fat, the roasting base. It is the constant across the entire festive kitchen, which means it is either contributing something consistent and real to every dish, or it is not.
The festive season in your kitchen starts today. VRK Naturals’ wood cold-pressed groundnut oil is pressed the traditional way wooden ghani, no heat, no chemicals so what goes into your chakli this Dussehra is the same oil that went into your grandmother’s.
That is not a small thing. It shows in the first bite.
