For the majority of my adulthood, I’ve done a half decent job of avoiding sour foods in favor of not giving away our life savings to my dentist.  So I was more than pleasantly surprised when my dad brought me a box of tamarind candy.  These little tamarind gum drops are dried pieces of tamarind mixed with chili powder and salt and coated with sugar.  They are the ultimate sour-sweet candy fix.  I managed to wait a few weeks after he brought them before I cautiously broke the box’s seal and popped one into my mouth.  I closed my mouth, shut my eyes and positioned the tamarind gum drop between my tongue and top of mouth, gently letting it dissolve as sour, sweet, spicy bathed my tongue and puckered my mouth.  And this time, I didn’t even have to sneak it!  You can find tamarind candy at any Indian or Asian grocery store and you can even order it online here from Amazon.  If you want to try your hand at making your own, Indira at Mahanandi has a recipe for tamarind lollipops.

I haven’t been able to think of many uses for tamarind candy other than to indulge my sour cravings.  You might make a tamarind cocktail then skewer two pieces of candy and place them in the glass.  Any other ideas?

Of course, there’s a lot more to tamarind than just tamarind candy.  Tamarind is commonly used in Indian cooking, and I recommended it awhile back in this post as one of the top 10 Indian spices to stock in your pantry.  Tamarind is the fruit of the tamarind tree, which grows in a number of tropical countries.  The fruit of the tree, when ripened, is inside of a dry, brown pod.  Inside of the pods, you’ll find a dark brown, slightly sticky substance with shiny, blackish-brown, flat seeds inside of them.  Here’s a link to more scientific facts about tamarind trees.

South Indian cooking relies heavily on tamarind to add a sour punch with mild fruity, sweet undertones to a variety of dishes ranging from sambar to rasam to chutneys.  Nowadays, tamarind comes in many different shapes and sizes.  While you can find it fresh in its dry pods at some fresh farmer’s market (like the Dekalb Farmers Market in Atlanta), the more common forms found in Indian grocery stores are blocks of dried tamarind, tamarind concentrate (a common brand is TamCon) or tamarind paste (common brands are Laxmi and Swad).  The tamarind block is fresher than the concentrates and pastes, but it requires a little more prep work.

Here are some quick tips on how to work with the different forms of tamarind:

Tamarind Block – Tear off the required amount of tamarind and soak it in a small bowl with enough hot water to cover the pieces.  After a few minutes, when the knobs become soft, use your fingers to pry apart the pieces and separate out any seeds.  Squeeze the softened pieces of tamarind between your fingers until the knobs are broken up and you’re left with a pulpy liquid.  Strain through a sieve to remove any remaining seeds and fibers.

Tamarind Concentrate – Mix the required amount of tamarind concentrate with a little bit of water in a separate bowl from the dish you’re preparing.  Create a tamarind slurry and then add it the dish.  If you add it directly, the concentrate will not mix in thoroughly.  Use less water if you’re preparing a dry dish.

Tamarind Paste – This is the type of tamarind that I keep on hand in my kitchen.  I used to use the concentrate, but this inevitably led to whatever I was making being way too sour.  Since the paste is less concentrated than the pure concentrate, you don’t need to use much water at all before mixing it in to your dish.  You can remove a little liquid from your dish, mix the paste into the liquid and then add it back to the pot together. 

Substitute – You can buy tamarind at any Indian grocery store, but a substitute, that’s more readily available, is lemon juice.  The taste is not exactly the same, but for most recipes lemon juice provides either the same taste or a slightly different type of sourness that’s equally tasty.

Updated Favorite Food Blogs:

On another note, I’ve finally gotten around to updating my list of favorite food blogs, which are all linked to on the far left sidebar.  Just want to make sure you don’t miss these new blogs that I’ve added:

• Eggless Cooking – a blog dedicated to eggless recipes.  Although I do (now!) eat eggs, Madhu’s eggless recipes are healthy and you don’t miss the eggs. 
• Food Blog Search – although this isn’t a food blog, it’s a really handy tool that let’s you search more than 3,000 food blogs.  I’ve just added hungry desi to their search engine and wanted to share it with you.
• fresh365 – a collection of vegetarian recipes that use fresh, seasonal produce with tantalizing photos and creative, tempting recipes.
• Holy Cow! Vegan Recipes – “meatless, eggless, dairyless and all-other-animal-product-less” recipes from Vaishali, a blogger who loves food and animals but doesn’t “care to mix the two”.  A theory that applies to me although admittedly, I’m sure there are a few stray animal by-products in my kitchen that I’m ignorantly unaware of!
• Passionate About Baking – a blog dedicated to baking by Vindee Deeba (too accustomed to seeing Deeba’s twitter name!), who truly is passionate about her baking!  I am amazed by the sweets that she’s constantly churning out of her kitchen.  My palate is more tuned for savoury, but I get my sweet fill by reading about Vindee’s treats.
• Pithy and Cleaver – Lest you were thinking all vegetarian was a requirement for making my favorite food blog list (it isn’t), here’s a blog from two NY based designers with recipes that use fresh, seasonal ingredients and always incorporate some witty, funny story that keeps me entertained.

There are a lot more food blogs out there with tempting, well written recipes by engaging food bloggers, which I’ll surely get around to adding soon.  Let me know what your favorites are!

Today is World Nutella Day, and I applaud the good people who decided that this chocolate and hazelnut wonder deserves a day of it’s own.  In honor of the occasion, I want to share the nutella drenched waffle pictured above that I had at Wafels & Dinges, a Belgian waffles truck.  Yes, that’s right.  A truck.  Where else but in New York, right?*  Yet another reason I love this city – it has trucks motoring around cheap gourmet treats.  I first read about them here in the NY Times and was looking forward to trying one ever since. Fortunately, Wafels & Dinges seems to have found a semi-permanent home on 7th Avenue in Park Slope.  I decided to start my waffle truck experience with a liege wafel with nutella,  a dentist’s dream…The liege is advertised as having “sugar pearls” and it really does have nuggets of crystallized sugar throughout.  Maybe a few too many.  Next time, I’m opting for the Brussels Waffle.

Also, here’s another nutella treat that may be of interest which I blogged about back in November, Nutella Ricotta Stuffed Pancakes.  The pancakes use King Arthur unbleached white whole wheat flour and part skim ricotta which give a savoury taste that tempers the sweet decadence of nutella nicely.  Translation: it won’t make you feel like your teeth are going to fall out.  I’m sending all of these over to World Nutella Day, hosted by Ms. Adventures in Italy and Bleeding Espresso.

*After thinking about it for a few more minutes, I realize I’ve had delicious street food, where else, but in many cities throughout India (although occasionally followed by unpleasant GI issues).  Where do you get your favorite street foods?  Know of a really good street cart?  I would love to hear about it – click here to leave a comment below and share it.

Update: Check out all of the Nutella Day entries here.

I’ve put together a list of the ten essential Indian spices for North and South Indian cooking – a recipe here or there may call for a spice more off the beaten path but the spices below are the common spices called for in most Indian recipes.  If you’re looking for a last minute holiday present, you could follow my sister�EUR(TM)s lead and make this into a gift for a beginner cook exploring Indian cooking or one looking to just get more organized. Just buy some cute mason jars like these and print out labels using your computer.

Top Ten Essential Indian Spices

1. Lal Mirchand Dried Red Chilis �EUR” red chili powder or cayenne pepper, commonly used in North and South Indian cooking for a spicy kick and made of powdered, dried red chilis.  Dried chili powders are also a main part of a South Indian tadka.  Dried red chilis give off less heat than the powdered form.   

2. Turmeric �EUR” bright yellow in color, turmeric is known for its many medicinal properties and gives a yellow tinge to dishes.  It’s used in both South and North Indian cooking.     

3. Garam Masala – a mix of cinnamon, cumin seeds, coriander seeds, cardamom seeds, black peppercorns, cloves and nutmeg – a North Indian all spice of sorts.

4. Coriander Powder (Dhaniya) �EUR” coriander, also referred to as cilantro, can be purchased as whole seeds or a powder and is used in both South and North Indian cooking. In a pinch, you can substitute coriander seeds for the powder and vice versa.

5. Cumin Powder (Jeera) �EUR” cumin can also be purchased as whole seeds or a powder, which are also interchangeable, and is used in both South and North Indian cooking.

6. Split Urad Dhal �EUR” although this is actually a lentil with a black exterior covering a white interior, the skinned, split version is commonly used in the South Indian tadka (tempering). Whole urad dhal is the lentil used in North Indian curries.

7. Split Channa Dhal (also known as Bengal gram) �EUR” also a lentil, this yellow split dhal is commonly used in the South Indian tadka (tempering) for preparing, among other items, upama, sambar and yogurt rice. A good substitute are yellow split peas.  The whole lentil is used in North Indian curries.

8. Mustard Seeds �EUR” these little black balls are commonly used in South Indian cooking as part of the tadka and are known for their digestive properties.  They release their full flavor when popped.  

9. Curry Leaves �EUR” these are leaves of the kari plant, and the fragrance and flavor that these leaves add to the South Indian tadka is spicy, fresh and comforting. You can purchase these fresh at an Indian grocery and, although not ideal, you can freeze them or dry them. I broke down and bought a curry leaf plant, which I�EUR(TM)ve been cultivating in a pot indoors.  

10. Tamarind Paste – tamarind is actually a fruit which has a sour and acidic taste.  It’s commonly used in South Indian dishes to gives this taste.  The easiest to use form is a concentrated paste, which you dilute by mixing in a little water before using.

A few that were in close contention for the top ten and likely warrant a spot in your masala rack were sambar powder, rasam powder and fenugreek seeds (methi).  Also, for those interested to read more about the South Indian tadka mentioned above, Indira at Mahanandi has a great post describing it, which you can find here.

I would love to hear from anyone else about what spices they think are essentials for Indian cooking.