Sweet Tamarind Drink

I think tamarind is the foreign equivalent to the lemon in its sourness and use for medicinal and culinary purposes. This is one of the recipes that I've been meaning to try after reading about it in Saveur magazine. Basically you take about a pound of fresh tamarind pods, you'd want them fresher if you wanted a drink or pulp that was less sour. Shell them out and remove whatever harder strings are attached to the pulp. Put them in 2 quarts of water and boil until the pulp is soft (about 15-20 minutes). Strain the water through a sieve and reserve the liquid. This is where I deviated from the recipe a bit. In the pot where I had boiled the pulp, I added about a quart and a half of cool water and just used my hands to separate the seeds from the pulp. Instead of using a blender, I put the pulp through the sieve to separate the pulp from the seeds. At this point, you could scrape the bottom of the sieve with a spoon to get your tamarind pulp for other dishes. Anyhow, strain all the tamarind liquid and pulp into an 8-quart pot. Bring that pot to a boil and cool. Sugar to taste and serve. For 1 cup of tamarind liquid, 2 tsp of sugar seems to sweeten it enough so that it isn't overbearingly tart. After having made this from scratch, I can see why the advertised pictures of tamarind drink never resembles what it does if you make it fresh. I must say that the whole preparation process tastes better than it looks. The drink itself smells rather earthy, like boiled plants--not vegetables, but like someone cooked up peat moss and served it as a drink. Seeing how it's autumn now, I suppose that sour drinks aren't as refreshing when the weather is cooler. Kudos to the wild plant gatherer 3,000 years ago who convinced someone else to drink a brownish liquid made from the seed pulp that resembles nearly dried cat sh**.
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