For this years winter religious holiday celebration extravaganza I'm
planning on putting together a little recipe book with traditional
Indian recipes along with jars of homemade spice mixtures (various
curries, garam masala, sambar spices, etc). Sambar spice is created
by frying (not toasting) various spices in a small ammount of ghee
(clarified butter) or oil and then grinding. I'll probably go the
oil route, so how safe is it to store this stuff outside the refrigerator
once it's been fried and how long will it last? All the recipes I find
say to store for later use but I always just make enough to use at the
time. Something about frying things and then letting sit out does not
sit well with my idea of food safety.

Tnx,
~Deepak

--
Deepak Saxena - - http://www.plexity.net

Deepak Saxena > wrote:
>Something about frying things and then letting sit out does not
>sit well with my idea of food safety.

Frying is cooking, and cooking is sterilizing, and frying
spices probably runs the oil up over 350 degrees for a
couple of minutes.

As long as the container you put it in has been sterilized,
too, it should be fine.

Think of those pots of chili-oil sitting on tables at Chinese
food restaurants for weeks at a time. Perfectly safe.

--Blair
"I hope."

Deepak Saxena wrote:
>
> For this years winter religious holiday celebration extravaganza I'm
> planning on putting together a little recipe book with traditional
> Indian recipes along with jars of homemade spice mixtures (various
> curries, garam masala, sambar spices, etc). Sambar spice is created
> by frying (not toasting) various spices in a small ammount of ghee
> (clarified butter) or oil and then grinding. I'll probably go the
> oil route, so how safe is it to store this stuff outside the refrigerator
> once it's been fried and how long will it last? All the recipes I find
> say to store for later use but I always just make enough to use at the
> time. Something about frying things and then letting sit out does not
> sit well with my idea of food safety.
>


I believe I would bottle the sambar mixture with
instructions to the user for frying it. That
way the user will have the sambar very freshly prepared.

gloria p

On Mon, 29 Sep 2003 21:52:44 +0000 (UTC),
(Deepak Saxena) wrote:

>
>For this years winter religious holiday celebration extravaganza I'm
>planning on putting together a little recipe book with traditional
>Indian recipes along with jars of homemade spice mixtures (various
>curries, garam masala, sambar spices, etc). Sambar spice is created
>by frying (not toasting) various spices in a small ammount of ghee
>(clarified butter) or oil and then grinding. I'll probably go the
>oil route, so how safe is it to store this stuff outside the refrigerator
>once it's been fried and how long will it last? All the recipes I find
>say to store for later use but I always just make enough to use at the
>time. Something about frying things and then letting sit out does not
>sit well with my idea of food safety.
>
>Tnx,
>~Deepak

It's the oxidation of the fat that would concern me. What I'd do is
seal it in air tight glass jars and direct that it be stored in the
dark, or in the refrigerator. If you can vacuum seal the jars (a la a
Tilia Foodsaver or some such) that would be even better. Should last
for many months in the refrigerator. In a warm kitchen, but stored in
the dark I'd give it a month or so.

......Alan.


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