Vegan Food Review: Badia Tamarind Pods

[eredien]

I am eating Thai tonight with thomasyan, doma, and a friend of thomas'. We decided on Thai food last week, and currently heating are:

1.) Plain white rice
2.) A large pot of Thai Mango Curry, sans lemongrass since I couldn't find it (you can substitute pineapple if you are not a mango person)
3.) A plate of somewhat overdone but really delicious coconut dessert crepes from The 30 minute Thai Vegetarian Cookbook, substituting flax seeds for eggs.
4.) 1 and 1/2 cups of tamarind drink concentrate, homemade, which will probably eventually get drizzled all over the crepes and added to water to make a drink.

I was trying to find tamarind paste, but only found Badia tamarind pods, so I bought those at the store instead. You have to peel them and shell them, but they taste amazing. I added about 5 or 6 peeled pods to 1/2 c vinegar and 1/3 c packed brown sugar, boiled that down for about 15 min until it was a syrupy paste, strained out the seeds with a colander, then put 2 Tbsp sugar, 2 c water, and the tamarind paste back into the pot and boiled it more until all the ingredients combined, about another 15 min. It's really good, and apparently tamarind is the sweet/sour flavor my Thai and Mexican cooking has been lacking. It made me think of going to San Francisco and getting burritos in the Mission District with rax. You can also save the concentrate in the refrigerator for up to two months and just add it to stuff.

The pods were only $1.89 at the supermarket, and I still hav 5 or 6 left in the bag, so they're a really good value. A little bit of work to prepare, but honestly it's no worse than making rice.

Comments

[baniszew.livejournal.com]

That sounds _delicious_.