Tamarind is such a basic ingrediant in indian cooking. No recipe is complete without this awesome fruit. The tartness in this makes any gravy spectacular. The one hard thing is extracting the juice from this. Soaking it and then squeezing the pulp and straining it. I really find it hard when you have no time on hand. So i came up with a homemade pulp recipe which makes your life so easier.It is very easy to make too...
You can keep this jar in freezer and use it as you like..This tamarind pulp doesn't freezer rock hard, it freezes hard but you can scrape as mush you need from this. I hope you will love it as much as i do and ask me if you need any help.
Ingrediants:
Tamarind Fruit - 1 kg
Water - 1 liter
Salt - 1/2 cup
Method:
Take tamarind fruit in a large pot and break open it.
Add water to it and bring everything to a boil. Boil it for 10 mins.
Now remove it from heat and allow it to cool for a bit.
Take another large container and place a big holed colander over it .
Pour the tamarind mixture over this and using a ladle start pressing the mixture so that the pulp gets drained in the pot.
Do like this till you are left with the hard seeds and strings of the fruit.
Now add salt to the pulp and mix well. Allow it to cool completely.
Transfer this to a large freezer safe container and freeze it.
You can scrape as much pulp as you need when it is frozen for your recipes.
Important points:
1)Don't throw the left over seeds and pulp. Store that in fridge and use it in gravies and rasam.
2)Cool the mixture completely before freezing.
3) You can take a little amount of this mixture in a small container and keep it in fridge upto a week and use it.
Pictorial:
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| You need a block of tamarind fruit |
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| Break open the pack and add water to it |
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| bring it to a boil and simmer it for 10 mins |
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| Place a colander over a large bowl |
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| Pour the mixture over this |
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| Using a spoon press it |
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| till you are left with the pulp |
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| This is the extracted pulp |
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| add salt to it |
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| and mix well |
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| Transfer this to a large container |
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| Don't throw away the pulp which you got, Store that in a container and use it for gravy.. |
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| Transfer the container to freezer.. |