Welcome to the summary page for FabulousFusionFood's Spice guide to Tamarind Seed along with all the Tamarind Seed containing recipes presented on this site, with 200 recipes in total.

This is a continuation of an entire series of pages that will, I hope, allow my visitors to better navigate this site. As well as displaying recipes by name, country and region of origin I am now planning a whole series of pages where recipes can be located by meal type and main ingredient. This page gives a listing of all the spice-based recipes added to this site.

These recipes, all contain Tamarind Seed as a major flavouring.

Tamarind (also known as Indian date) represents the fruit pods of Tamarindus indica a tropical tree that belongs to the Fabaceae (leguminous plants) family. Originally native to Tropical Africa (Dakar in Senegal is named after the Wolof word for the tamarind tree) it has by now been introduced to most of tropical Asia as well as Latin America and the Caribbean. The tree itself can grow up to 20m tall and stays evergreen in regions without a dry season. Like most of the Fabaceae it has leaves made out of between 10 and 40 leaflets. The flowers are produced in racemes and once fertilized develop into brown pod-like legumes that contains a soft pulp and many hard-coated seeds.

The fruit pulp is edible and is employed as a spice in Asian, African (it is native to Tropical Africa) and Latin American cuisines (it's also an important ingredient in the condiments, Worcester sauce and HP sauce). The pulp of a young fruit is very sour and acidic and is most often used as a component of savory dishes. The ripened fruit is sweeter and can be used in desserts and drinks, or as a snack. Crushed tamarind seeds are also an important ingredient in Thai Tamarind Paste which forms the basis of many Thai dishes, such as Pad Thai.

The most commonly found form of tamarind is in semi-dried blocks made from crushed unripe tamarind pods (in the image, above you will see images of a tamarind pod and a partly-peeled pod, revealing the pulp inside, as well as the commercially available tamarind pulp). This is both sour and tart and is typically dissolved in boiling water to make tamarind juice (the juice is then strained to remove the solids) before being added to the food to be cooked. The acidity in Tamarind fruit is due to their high concentration of tartaric acid

The English name, Tamarind, is derived directly from the Arabic, at-tamr al-hindi [التمر الهندي] (literally, 'Indian Date') which was concatenated to tamar-ind and the direct translation of the Arabic name also gives the plant's alternate English name. Spanish and Portuguese traders introduced tamarind to southern India, Asia and South and Central America (particularly Mexico) and today the fruit is an important spice ingredient in the cuisines of these regions.