Tamarind
Date Chutney
Sweet
and our dipping sauce
- ½ cup
Tamarind pulp or Dried tamarind powder
- ½ cup
Soft fresh dates
- ¼ Th cup
Soft jaggery or Brown Sugar
- 1 teaspoon
Red chili powder
- 1 teaspoon
Cumin powder
- 1 teaspoon
Coriander powder
- 1 teaspoon
Salt
Blend
all the chutney ingredients in a blender at medium high speed
until smooth. Taste
for sweetness and sourness according to your taste. The chutney
should be more on the sweeter side than sour. Remove in a
dipping dish. Keep refrigerated.
Quick Tip:
Make this chutney ahead of time. It stays refrigerated for two
weeks.
What
is Tamarind?
It is the edible brown pulp of the bean pod of a tree, which is
commonly found throughout the tropical world. These large
(usually 3 to 8 inches in length) bean pods when dried are brown
in color, with a hard shell. Inside the 4 to 5 seeds are
surrounded with the pulp which is sweet and sour in taste.
Soaking the pods in warm water draws out the thick brown pulp.
This pulp adds a sweet and sour taste to the recipe. As a child
growing up in Bombay it was one of the "yummy" sour
things to eat from my mom’s kitchen; like the sour patch
candies available today.
Tamarind
can be found in many Indian grocery stores throughout the United
states. Today tamarind pulp is found in three forms. One is the
ready to use pulp, second is the dried
ready to use tamarind
powder form and third is the
seeded
or seedless pods
( as seen above) which can be soaked
in warm water to make the fresh pulp.
The pulp
is used mainly for fish and seafood recipes. It is also very
popular in the South of India and is used in most of their
vegetarian and non-vegetarian recipes.
