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Tamarind Water
1 tablespoon tamarinds 1 cup boiling water Let tamarinds stand in water one half hour, strain, chill, and serve.
A one-line infusion that depends entirely on what form your tamarind comes in. The original assumes the sticky, seed-flecked pulp sold by the pound at the druggist or grocer.
- What to buyUse the compressed block of seedless tamarind pulp sold in Latin American, Indian and Southeast Asian groceries; a tablespoon is roughly a half-ounce to an ounce lump. Bottled tamarind concentrate is far stronger and needs about a teaspoon per cup, while whole pods must be shelled and the veiny husk pulled away first.
- Break up the pulpLeft in a lump, the block barely gives up anything in half an hour. Mash it against the side of the cup with a spoon partway through the steep, or work it with your fingers once the water is cool enough to handle.
- StrainingPass it through a fine sieve, pressing the solids to extract the pulp rather than just pouring off the liquid. Discard any seeds and fiber; the finished drink should be cloudy and light brown.
- SweeteningThe recipe gives none, and unsweetened tamarind water is sharply sour. A tablespoon of sugar per cup, stirred in while the water is still hot, brings it closer to what most people expect from agua de tamarindo.
- YieldOne cup, which is a single serving. It scales directly, and a quart batch chilled for several hours is more practical than making it by the cup.
- KeepingIt is a fresh infusion with no preservative beyond its own acidity. Refrigerate and use within two or three days.
Tamarind was a standard drugstore item in nineteenth-century America long before it was a flavoring, valued as a mild laxative and a cooling drink for fevers; recipes for tamarind water, whey and tamarind-flavored jellies turn up throughout the period's sickroom cookery. The fruit itself is the pod of Tamarindus indica, an African tree long naturalized in India and the Caribbean; the name comes through Arabic tamr hindi, generally translated as "date of India," a reference to the sticky brown pulp inside the brittle shell.