Chutney

 How often have you wondered why the chutneys in a South Indian restaurant in USA are served cold / chilled and not at room temperature and suspected that it was not made fresh that day ?

You are not alone. Many people in fact write reviews on Yelp and Google Reviews expressing their displeasure without knowing the facts. 

I don’t know about other restaurants but this is what happens in Mylapore / Idly Express.

When we grind the coconut and green chillies with Dahlia in a 3.75 HP / 27000 RPM blender for five minutes the chutney that comes out is hot as hell at 90-95 degrees F.

According to health dept guidelines, hot food must be kept at 135 F or above and cold food must be kept at 41 F or below. In between 41 F and 135 F is what we call as a danger zone where bacteria thrives.

This chutney is already in the “danger zone” and must be rapidly cooled or it will go bad. You can very well understand what will happen if the warm chutney is packed in a cup with a lid on top. The chutney will deteriorate quickly due to rapid growth of bacteria and will go bad very soon. 

If the end user (you the customer) picks up the take out box and travels in his car and consumes the product after a couple of hours you can imagine what would have happened to the coconut chutney.  

Many a times when I read reviews pointing out to chilled chutney that was served , I would just smile and move on but today I wanted to show you the other side’s view on why we do certain things.

Thanks for reading.