Tamarind
Also known as: imli
What Tamarind is
The sour spine of South Indian cooking: the sticky dark pulp of the tamarind pod, behind sambar's tang, most chaat chutneys and tamarind rice. Sweet-sour in a way lemon is not, and worth knowing in its block form rather than only from a bottle.
The fruit of Tamarindus indica, a large tropical tree in the legume family; the pods hold a sticky brown pulp around hard seeds, and that pulp is compressed into the blocks sold in shops. India grows most of the world's crop. The block is pulp as it comes; paste is block soaked and sieved, ready to spoon; concentrate is boiled down and reduced, the sharpest of the three.
Taste and texture
Densely sour with a trailing sweetness — fruitier and rounder than lime or amchur. The block is sticky and fibrous, seeds included; concentrate tastes more of acid than of fruit, which is why it is easy to overdo.
Forms to buy
- Block — Compressed pulp with seeds and fibre; the best-flavoured form.
- Paste — Seedless, soaked and strained; ready to use, milder than concentrate.
- Concentrate — Dark and reduced; spoonable and sharp.
How to cook it
Soak a walnut-sized lump in half a cup of hot water for 10–15 minutes, squeeze it through your fingers and strain — that liquid is what recipes mean by tamarind water. It goes into sambar with the dal and vegetables, into rasam, and into the sweet-sour chutney for samosas and chaat, simmered with jaggery, roasted cumin and chilli until it coats a spoon. Tamarind rice (puliyodarai) mixes a reduced version of the same paste through cooked rice.
Buying note
Typically ¥300–¥600 for a block at Indian grocers, and cheaper than concentrate per use. Good block tamarind is dark chocolate-brown, glossy and slightly tacky; hard, crystallised or very dry blocks have lost too much water to work well.