British BBQ Society Forums

I experienced a lovely taste this weekend in the form of a tamarind dipping sauce. Made from dried tamarind blocks rather than the liquid concentrate you sometimes see. It is quite sour on its own, so needs a good dose of sugar, but I can see myself experimenting with this lovely ingredient in a BBQ sauce or glaze real soon!

I was actually speaking to a girl in the office about this after seeing Rick Stein use it so much on his Indian cooking program.

I have used it in paste form which is nice but have asked her to et me some when she next tops up , she is also going to get me a recipe her mums uses which she said will be fantastic on chicken as it is sweet and sticky.

You need to get the blocks, which are basically dried tamarind compressed into a block, similar to what you can get pitted dates in. You then mix it with a cup of hot water, and let it rehydrate for an hour, then you pass it through a sieve, get all the seeds and fibrous bits out. That's the tamarind paste. Needs lots of sugar, and other spices to make a sauce.

I found this recipe which looks quite good:

http://caribbeanpot.com/homemade-tamarind-bbq-sauce/

I got some in block form from Asda - was looking for the paste but couldn't find any, then subsequently found it in an Asian supermarket. Good to know there's something I can use it for!

I tried this recipe today, it makes quite a nice sauce

had a BBQ today and the most popular sauce was this tamarind one so it looks like I'll be making it again.

I think tamarind is a winner ingredient.