GREEN TEA & OLIVES: Kitchen Experiments: How To Make Tamarind Juice

Hello Friends!

Though the weather has been pretty mild this winter I have been yearning for summer. Longing for longer days and even longer weekends full of possibilities and adventures with my little ones. Some of those adventures involve being in the kitchen. Anyone who has been around little kids knows that kids in the kitchen usually means more work. The fun usually outweighs the extra work.

I have recently started letting my boys help me in the kitchen. Usually performing simple tasks like mixing pancake or waffle batter and scrambling eggs.

Today I am sharing how to make tamarind juice. This is a simple recipe and the steps are easy enough that little hands can easily tackle. Plus, you can always incorporate a little geography lesson while you're making the juice.

I grew up drinking this sweet and tangy juice during the hot summer months in Mendocino County, Northern California. I have fond memories of peeling the tamarind shell by hand alongside my mom and even fonder memories of drinking the delicious sweet and tangy concoction.

A little tamarind info: The tamarind pods grow on the Tamarind tree, which grows in tropical places like India, Asia, and Mexico. Mature pods are harvested and peeled to make juice, jellies, and candy. You can find the pods in Asian and Latin American markets in the U.S. You can order them from Amazon if you don't have a market nearby that carries them.

Now let's make some tamarind juice or agua de tamarindo (in Spanish).

Gather your ingredients: tamarind pods, sugar, water. Yep. That simple.

Step 1. Sift through the tamarind pods. Make sure none have tiny little holes. They may have undesired guests. Gross, I know.

Step 2. Peel the pods. They should like this:

Step 3. Boil a pot of water and add the tamarind pods. Let boil long enough to soften the fruit, about 5 minutes. Turn the stove off. Add sugar to taste and stir until the sugar dissolves. It should have the consistency of a light syrup. Let it sit while it cools. The fruit will further soften and separate from the seeds.

Step 4. At this point you can either pour the light syrup in a pitcher of ice and add water to dilute the mixture or strain the syrup mixture into a bowl and then adding the strained syrup into a pitcher of ice and add water to dilute the mixture. I personally prefer the non-strained mixture but if you are serving this to guests you might want to prettify it a bit by straining it.