I tried a really delicious milk tart a few years back when I was visiting Capetown and was hooked!  This is one of those ubiquitous desserts in South Africa that’s served throughout the country, on all sorts of occasions and every cook has his or her own secrets.  Melktart (meaning, literally, milk tart…) is a tradition that came from the Dutch settlers in the country, a custard-based tart scented with cinnamon delivered in a flaky pastry crust.

I am one of those people that have fruit tart cravings.  I will take a gorgeous tart with a pastry cream filling and topped with fruit over a straight fruit pie any day.  For some reason, I feel like the creaminess balances out the acidity in the fruit and with a flaky crust creates a perfect dessert. For me, the idea of putting fruit on top of a milk tart seemed perfectly natural (though it’s not usually done there).

Also, I semi-cheated and used puff pastry for the crust – how I could go on about the benefits of puff pastry!!  I’ve made it before from scratch, and it’s definitely a process.   Puff pastry tastes good, and those guys who’ve created the frozen versions have mastered it – why mess with perfection here?  This crust comes together easily, and it’s a few less steps you have to take to make an equally delicious tart.

So, now about milk tart itself.  The filling is basically a custard with hints of cinnamon, almond, and (my addition) vanilla.  The cornstarch helps to thicken the custard and make sure it’s not too eggy – you don’t want a crème brulée tart here!  The beaten egg whites lighten the batter and add an airy quality to the finished product.  The result is a beautiful, creamy, vanilla-specked filling with that caramelized top in a gorgeous flaky crust – the fruit just adds another lovely layer of flavor.  This is perfect for a dinner party (impressive too!) or even a ladies lunch.  Enjoy!

Ingredients

Yields 1 9-inch fluted tart / Serves 6 to 8

Crust:

½ package frozen puff pastry (1 sheet), defrosted

1 egg beaten with a bit of heavy cream for egg wash

Wax paper and dry beans to weight down

Filling:

1 ½ cups whole milk

½ tsp salt

1 stick cinnamon

1 vanilla bean, split and scraped

½ tsp almond essence

½ cup heavy cream

¼ cup cornstarch

1 ½ tbsps unsalted butter

2 eggs, separated

½ cup + 2 tbsps confectioner’s sugar

½ tsp cinnamon ground

Topping:

Sliced or whole fruit of choice: strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, kumquats, cape gooseberries, etc.

Procedure

For the crust:

Preheat the oven to 350° F convection / 375° F convention.

Let’s start by rolling out and blind-baking the crust.  On a floured surface, roll the sheet of puff pastry out just enough so it will cover the inside of the tart pan and have some overlap.   Place it carefully in the 9-inch, fluted tart shell and press it into the corners and sides.  Trim the excess.  Place a piece of wax paper across the top of the tart so it covers the sides.  Add dried beans to weight down the crust and refrigerate for 15 minutes while you start on the filling.

Place in the oven and bake for 20 minutes.  Take the crust out of the oven, remove the weights, and brush with the egg wash.  Put back in the oven for another 5 minutes until golden.  Set aside until ready to fill and leave the oven on.

For the filling:

In a small saucepan, bring the milk, salt, cinnamon stick, vanilla bean, and almond essence up to boil.  Lower immediately to a simmer.  In a small bowl, whisk together the heavy cream with the cornstarch making sure there aren’t any lumps.  Add this to the milk mixture along with the butter and stir until the mixture thickens.  Remove from the heat.

Make sure the egg yolks are in a larger-sized bowl because you’ll be adding the milk mixture to them.  You want to start by adding a little bit of the milk mixture and stirring or whisking to incorporate.   Continue to do this a little at a time until the milk mixture is completely incorporated – we do this to avoid cooking the yolks and having bits of it in the tart.  Let this mixture cool to closer to body temperature before moving on to the next step.

In another bowl, beat the egg whites with the ½ cup of confectioner’s sugar until soft peaks form – should be light and fluffy.  Add a spoonful or two of the milk custard to the egg whites and incorporate.  Carefully, fold the egg whites into the milk custard to lighten it up.  Be careful not to overmix or you will deflate it significantly.

Add this filling to the tart shell.  Mix together the last 2 tablespoons of confectioner’s sugar with cinnamon and sprinkle on top of the tart.  This will develop into a nice brown crust on top.

Bake for 10 minutes, and then lower the temperature 25 degrees and bake another 15 minutes.  Don’t be surprised if it puffs up during cooking – it will reduce down as it cools.  Cool on a rack and top with fruits of your choice.

This tart can be served warm or cold, but since I added the fruits I thought I’d keep it on the cooler side myself.

South African Milk Tart with Fruits is a post from: Aliya LeeKong

So, admittedly, I’ve been on a bit of a healthy kick lately – toting around awful looking bottles of green juice, trying to eat more raw foods and roughage, and avoiding alcohol (gasp!). A bit of a spring cleanse, if you will.  It’s been about two weeks (14 days, 11 hours and 33 minutes but who’s counting?), and I’m feeling pretty good.  For some reason, over the last few days, my sweet tooth has gone a bit haywire, so I decided to make something I crave pretty often…nutella!

Now, nutella is one of those items with which I avoid eye contact in the grocery store.  God forbid I bring a jar of it home, and it sits there longingly, just asking for me to take a spoon to it each time I go into the kitchen.  I grew up eating it on special breakfast occasions, a lusciously chocolate-y and nutty filling for crèpes, a tradition I’ve carried on to adulthood.  It’s popular for breakfast in Europe, where it’s touted as healthy!  Can you actually believe it??

On closer inspection, it really isn’t that bad for you!  Nuts, skim milk, a bit of cocoa powder – I thought a homemade version could only be better.  I used a slightly healthier oil, hazelnut oil, in lieu of the palm oil used in the original version.  I also used a local honey instead of sugar.  I did add some real dark chocolate to mine, but I rationalized that 3.5 ounces spread out over a whole jar can’t be that bad for you, and isn’t dark chocolate an antioxidant anyway? This nutella is creamy, rich, and delicious and tastes just like the ingredients it’s made from (so use good ones!).  Enjoy!

Ingredients

¾ cup chopped hazelnuts, toasted*

¼ cup raw almonds, toasted*

2 tbsps hazelnut oil

1-3 tbsps local honey**

½ tsp vanilla extract

1 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder

½ tsp kosher salt

½ cup skim milk

3.5 ounces semisweet or dark chocolate, chopped

Procedure

To the bowl of a food processor, add the toasted hazelnuts and almonds and process until a fine crumb.  Add the oil, honey, vanilla extract, cocoa powder and salt and process until a paste.

In a small saucepan, heat the milk and chocolate together until the chocolate is completely melted.  Add to the food processor and process until the nutella’s texture is smooth and creamy.  Cool and refrigerate.  This can be stored in the refrigerator for about a week.

*I chopped up the hazelnuts here to increase their surface area, so they toast up quicker.  You can easily toast the chopped hazelnuts and almonds together in a 350° F oven for 5 to 10 minutes.

**The variation in the amount of honey really depends on 2 things: (1) what type of chocolate you are using and (2) your personal preference for how sweet you want this.  I used a 70% dark chocolate and about 2 tablespoons, but if you are using a semisweet or even a milk chocolate, you may need less.  This is something that you can add at the end to taste if you like.

My Homemade Nutella is a post from: Aliya LeeKong

Earlier this week, I mentioned the St. Lucian version of salsa, souscaille, and this is an ingredient that’s sometimes included in it: seasoning peppers!  Such a practical name for these little guys as that is precisely what they do.  It’s true, they look a lot like the habanero or scotch bonnet pepper, and I had to do a double take when I first saw them. But these don’t even come close to the heat level of one of those peppers and truly season food with an incredible flavor.

These peppers are grown throughout Latin America and the Caribbean and are, more formally, aji dulce peppers.  The flavor is straight habanero without the heat – that tangy richness and sweetness and just a slight touch of heat.  The photo below was taken on the farm I visited where they grew them, and it felt insane to bite into a pepper that looked and smelled like a habanero and not flinch!

Aji dulce means “sweet pepper” and is a key ingredient in Latin American sofrito,  some cultures’ peas and rice (or rice and peas depending on where you’re from), Cuban black beans, Brazilian jams, and countless other West Indian and Latin dishes.  They aren’t the easiest to find, and I’m going to be exploring Latin markets until I find a supplier.  But my other plan is to look for a plant in the farmers’ market this summer when they come into season.

I would add these to…basically everything!  As it is, I cook with habaneros for the flavor, scraping out as much of the seeds and ribs as possible to reduce the heat level.  If I could achieve that flavor without the painful heat?  I’d be in heaven!  Thought I’d still use habaneros here and there… Salads, crab cakes, stir fries, morning eggs, macaroni pie….I’d lose my mind.

Seasoning Peppers! is a post from: Aliya LeeKong

Increasingly, I’m realizing that every culture has its form of “salsa.”  When I was down in St. Lucia a few weeks back, I found out they have their version called souscaille.  In South Asian cuisines, it’s called kachumber, and in African cuisines, kachumbari.  At all points, it’s a fresh salad, often with onions or shallots, with acidity in the form of the juice or segments of citrus or vinegar.  I wanted to inject a little seasonality into my salsa this week, and spring’s tart rhubarb was the perfect add.

Rhubarb, contrary to popular belief, is a vegetable, and it has a crisp, fresh texture that’s somewhere between jicama and celery with a sourness that’s reminiscent of green apples.  I’ve played with it before in a dessert, a granita, but here I wanted to see what it could do from a savoury point of view.

The cucumber and rhubarb meld together beautifully.  You have the cooling, soothing, watery cucumber contrasted with the tart bite of the rhubarb.  The shallots add mellow onion flavor and the fresh mint a bright finish.  It would be perfect on fish or shrimp tacos or a simply grilled chicken breast.  Enjoy!

Ingredients

Yields approximately 2 ½ cups

2 mini seedless cucumbers, cut into a small dice

1 stalk rhubarb, cut into small dice

1 shallot, finely chopped

juice of half a lime

½ tsp kosher salt

pinch cayenne pepper

pinch white sugar

small handful fresh mint, finely chopped

Procedure

In a small bowl, toss together the cucumbers, rhubarb and shallot.  Add the lime juice, salt, cayenne, sugar and mint mix thoroughly.

Rhubarb, Cucumber & Mint Salsa is a post from: Aliya LeeKong

I stumbled across these beauties the other day and had to share them with you fast!  Green almonds are one of the (fleeting) joys of spring available for somewhere between 4 and 8 weeks between April and June.  And they are exactly what you think: almonds that are not yet ripe, picked before the shell hardens and before they are traditionally ready to harvest, which usually happens in late summer or early fall.

The first thing that you notice about green almonds is their teardrop shape and that they have this lovely, soft, fuzzy exterior, which resembles the feel of peaches and apricots (they are actually related).  The inside houses a skinless, white, baby almond, that varies in texture with its maturity; when picked very early, the texture is more gelatinous, and, later, it begins to firm up and have more of a bite.  These can be eaten whole, as is, or shelled.  Whole, eating a green almond reminds me of biting into a more tart and meaty pea pod with that herbaceous, tannic and slightly fruity flavor.  Shelled, it’s more delicate, lacking the traditional almond flavor and with a milder, less tart flavor than the whole guy.

Almonds are native to the Middle East, so people there have been snacking on green almonds for centuries. Oftentimes, they are simply sprinkled with a bit of salt, but I’ve also seen them incorporated into rice dishes.  In Europe, these little guys get tucked into fruit preserves during the jarring process. Here, chefs have been using them in a myriad of ways – in soups, pestos, on greens.  They can be shaved over a salad or even fish – their mild flavor pairs beautifully with seafood.  I love them fried (who wouldn’t!) and sprinkled with a nice, flavored salt; smoked Maldon is amazing here.

I plan to veer away from savory this year and try them in a cream-based dessert.  Like on top of a budino or in a clafouti.  The main thing is to experiment with them and see how you like to eat them, but act fast before they disappear from the market…

Green Almonds is a post from: Aliya LeeKong

Most of the time, what I make for you guys is a very personal interpretation of a dish.  I think of it like my little fantasy, how I’d like to eat a dish regardless of its origin or culture and using ingredients I can get to.  I think everyone that loves to cook does this on some level – cooks things the way they like it.  But, there are times when I do crave the original!  That’s when I research (eating and reading) and try to recreate it from scratch, adjusting the spice level and seasoning where necessary but keeping to the unadulterated tradition as much as possible, which is the case with this Kerala-style shrimp curry.

This is actually a traditional curry I created for Junoon.  I did a ton of research and found out that in the south of India, in Kerala, they use this (very hard to come by) ingredient called kodampuli, which is also called Malabar or smoked tamarind.  And smoky is right – it’s used as a souring agent and has a tart, smoky, complex quality that I love!  That said, if you can’t find it, kokum or regular tamarind also works really well here to create that tart flavor.

People usually think curries are heavy, and they certainly can be.  I know I have to be in a mood to eat them. But not so with this one – despite the coconut milk, this curry feels a lot lighter.  The flavors are bright and fresh and not overly spiced.  There’s heat from the chilies, depth from the curry leaves, and that brightness from the cilantro.  I like to sear the shrimp and develop a nice brown on them before putting them into the curry.  Some simply fried shallots create a beautiful crunch on top and spooning this over some warm, basmati rice is pure heaven.  Enjoy!

Ingredients
Serves 4

4 pieces kodampuli*

3/4 cup boiling water

1 yellow onion, peeled and roughly chopped

2 shallots, peeled and roughly chopped

1 2.5-inch generous knob of ginger, peeled roughly chopped

8 cloves garlic, peeled

1 Thai green chili, stemmed

5-7 tablespoons coconut oil

2 teaspoons brown mustard seed

1 tsp white cumin seeds

pinch of fennel seeds

10 curry leaves

2-3 dried red chilies

¼ tsp Indian hot chili powder

½ tsp paprika

1 tsp turmeric

1 tsp ground coriander

1 tsp ground cumin

½ tsp garam masala

1 ½ cans coconut milk

1 ½ tsps palm sugar

squeeze of lemon juice

1 ½ lbs shrimp, cleaned and shelled

kosher salt and freshly ground pepper

small handful of cilantro, chopped

fried shallots (optional, as garnish)

grilled lime (optional, as garnish)

Procedure

In a metal or heat safe bowl, pour boiling water over the kodampuli.  After 10 minutes, remove one piece from the water.  Blend remaining in a blender and strain.  Set aside strained liquid and one piece.

To the bowl of a food processor, add the onion, shallot, ginger, garlic, and green chili.  Process to a smooth paste.

Heat 3 to 4 tablespoons of coconut oil in a medium pot over medium-high heat. When hot, add mustard seeds, cumin seeds, fennel seeds, curry leaves, and dried red chilies. Move around in the pot – it will sputter and pop so be careful!  Cook for about 30 seconds and then add the onion paste along with all of the dry spices.  Cook until the paste dries up and the onions turn golden brown, stirring to make sure it isn’t sticking too much or burning.

Add the single kodampuli, the strained liquid, the coconut milk, and the palm sugar.  Lower heat and simmer for 8 to 10 minutes until the sauce thickens. Squeeze in a bit of lemon juice, and adjust the seasoning here adding salt and freshly ground pepper as necessary.

Dry shrimp and season with salt and freshly ground pepper.  Heat a skillet over medium-high heat.  Add 2 to 3 tablespoons of coconut oil and sauté shrimp, working in batches if necessary.  Cook for 2 to 3 minutes, drain of excess oil and then transfer to the pot with the curry.

Add the cilantro to the curry right before serving and remember to remove the hot, dried red chilies so no one eats them!  Serve hot, preferably with basmati rice or naan, garnished with fried shallots and a grilled lime.

*Kodampuli is not the easiest to find, so you can substitute kokum or a piece of a tamarind block in its place.  You want a relatively tart liquid to flavor the curry.

Kerala Shrimp Curry is a post from: Aliya LeeKong

I always love cooking for holidays and get-togethers, and yesterday was no exception.  Usually, I decide the dishes way in advance and have a 3-day prep list in order to make my life easier and, quite frankly, less stressful for the event.  This Easter Sunday, not so much.  I bolted awake Saturday in a panic and interrogated my husband to figure out what to make.  His response was classic and came as no surprise in their usual casserole form: “shepherd’s pie and stuffing and I really don’t care what else you make.”

We ended up having a bunch of friends (whose family is not in the NYC area) over for the Sunday meal.  I’m used to stuffing for Thanksgiving when there’s actually a bird or something to be stuffed.  That said, who doesn’t love stuffing?  The weather is still cold, so I threw together some hearty ingredients that complemented the brined pork chops I served.

The foundation of the stuffing (besides the whole bread thing) is the bacon.  It adds that first layer of salty, smoky crunch, and I use its fat to cook the other vegetables.  The shiitakes add in that meaty, umami flavor and roasted leeks a signature, onion-like one.  For heat, I threw in a very generous pinch of Aleppo chili flakes, which are tangy, a bit sweet, with that kick.  I loved the results. If you want a vegetarian version, you can obviously omit the bacon and use vegetable stock in lieu of chicken stock; I’d use butter though for richness and maybe throw in some smoked paprika.  Crusty, moist, flavorful and pure comfort…enjoy!

Ingredients

Serves 6 to 8 / Yields (1) 2-quart baking dish

1 loaf challah bread, crusts removed, cut into cubes*

1 leek, white and light green parts only, thickly sliced

olive oil

kosher salt to taste

2 pieces of bacon, cut into a small dice

12-14 shiitake mushrooms, cleaned and stemmed, thinly sliced

1 shallot, finely chopped

3-4 garlic cloves, minced

very large pinch Aleppo chili flakes

¼ cup white wine

½ cup chicken stock

2 eggs, beaten

¼ cup heavy cream

1 ½ tsps chopped fresh thyme

small handful cilantro, finely chopped

freshly ground black pepper to taste

Procedure

Preheat oven to 400° F.

Transfer challah cubes to a large bowl and add the other ingredients as they are ready.

Toss leek with a bit of olive oil and salt and lay out on a baking sheet.  Roast in the oven for 15 to 20 minutes until starting to brown as you are prepping the rest of the ingredients.  Transfer to the bowl with the challah bread.

Heat a medium skillet over medium heat.  Add the bacon and cook stirring until the fat has rendered and the bacon has crisped up.  Using a slotted spoon, transfer the bacon to the challah bread reserving the fat in the pan.

Turn the heat up to high and when hot, add the shiitake mushrooms to the pan with the bacon fat.  Let them just sit there for a minute or two before stirring – you want to develop a nice brown on them.  Stir and add in the shallot, garlic, Aleppo and some salt to draw out the moisture.  Cook until the shallot is translucent.  Add the white wine and reduce until it’s almost all gone.  Add the chicken stock and let simmer for 1 minute.  Transfer the vegetables and liquid to the bowl with the challah bread.

Add the eggs, heavy cream and herbs to the bread as well and toss the whole mixture together.  You can add a bit more chicken stock if you find it isn’t moist enough.

Transfer stuffing to a greased baking dish and cover with foil.  Bake covered for 30 minutes.  Remove foil and bake uncovered for another 10 to 15 until crisp.

* I usually use brioche or challah for this and buy the bread the day before.  If the bread still has a lot of moisture, transfer the cubed pieces to a baking sheet and throw it in a 350° F oven for 5 to 10 minutes to crisp up.  You want them to be dry before adding the rest of the ingredients.

My Easter Stuffing is a post from: Aliya LeeKong

I feel like dates have gotten a bad rap – conjuring thoughts of trail mix (not that there’s anything wrong with it…) and other dried fruit and nut products.  The image is a super dry, chewy nugget, indiscernible in true taste other than a vague sweetness – not really special or noteworthy.  I think this notion of date needs to be cleared up, particularly when it comes to one type, medjool dates…

A few months back I stayed with a friend in Bahrain who has 3 or 4 different types of date palm trees lining her pool and backyard, including medjool (dates are indigenous to the Middle East fyi).  Every year, she harvests the dates and goes through the preserving process.  For afternoon coffee, we’d sip strong Arabic coffee and have a serious, homemade date tasting!  It’s a longstanding tradition there.  Each one had a nuanced flavor and a soft, succulent texture….heavenly.

Medjool’s are prized for being the largest and most flavorful of the bunch.  They have a tender, melt-in-your-mouth character and are in no way reminiscent of the dried, tough dates in trail mix.  The flavor is sweet with overtones of caramel and chocolate.   A good date should be like dessert, albeit a bit healthier since it’s high in fiber and minterals (so healthy it’s often used to break fasts).

I have made many a date-doubting friend a believer!  I once removed the pit, stuffed them with chestnut cream and topped with bacon crumbles and pomegranate molasses for a party.  I didn’t make a ton of them thinking people would be anti-date…I was wrong and got cleaned out!  Although they are amazing on their own, they are also lovely in chutneys, broke into pieces as an ice cream topping, in a bbq sauce…the list goes on.

Medjool Dates is a post from: Aliya LeeKong

Avocados as dessert?  Yes, yes, and yes.  I am still reminiscing about my trip to Brazil, and there, avocados (which are fruits, mind you…) are often eaten as a dessert – sometimes sprinkled with lime juice and sugar and other times blended with cream or condensed milk to produce a thick pudding, amongst other ways.  In the U.S., we have gone so far as to add them to milk shakes or protein shakes, why not take it a step further and embrace this creamy fruit as dessert-worthy…

I picked up this beautiful, long, rectangular tart mold recently and had been itching to use it.  That said, if I’m being completely honest, I have to have the baking bug to go that extra mile and bake a tart from scratch.  This is a no-bake tart!  You merely have to press buttered, cookie crumbs into the mold and freeze for a few minutes to set.  It doesn’t get easier.

Add to that the filling is a breeze – a few ingredients thrown into a food processor to do the work – and this may be the easiest tart you’ve ever made.  It sets up in a few hours so could easily be thrown together before a dinner party.  Avocado season has begun and will run through the summer, and this is the perfect icebox treat to keep around for summer entertaining.  The avocado pairs with chocolate beautifully – sweet, creamy with the bitter, chocolaty crunch from the crust…Enjoy!

Ingredients

Yields 1 13 ¾” x 4 1/2 “ x 1” tart

Crust:

1 ½ sticks unsalted butter

2 ¼ cups chocolate cookie crumbs (from Oreos without the center filling or other chocolate wafer cookies

1 tsp kosher salt

Filling:

4 oz mascarpone cheese

½ can sweetened condensed milk

½ tsp vanilla extract

Squeeze of lime juice

2 ripe avocados, pitted

Garnish (optional):

fresh whipped cream

shaved bittersweet chocolate

Procedure

Melt butter in a medium saucepan.  Add cookie crumbs and a ½ teaspoon of the salt and mix with a fork until fully incorporated.  Press evenly into the tart pan going up the sides as well.  Place in the freezer for 10 minutes.

To the bowl of a food processor, add the mascarpone, sweetened condensed milk, vanilla extract, the other ½ teaspoon of kosher salt, squeeze of lime juice and spoon in the avocado flesh.  Process until thick, creamy and uniform consistency.

Spoon avocado mixture into the tart shell and smooth with a spatula.  Refrigerate for a minimum of two hours, though this can definitely be made a day or two ahead.  When unmolding, let the tart sit at room temperature for 20 to 30 minutes first, so that it loosens easily.

Serve slightly chilled with a dollop of whipped cream and some shavings of chocolate.

Sweet Avocado-Chocolate Tart (No Bake!) is a post from: Aliya LeeKong

I grew up eating tamarind chutney all the time (and living in Florida, occasionally sipping a tamarindo from the corner store).  I realize that not everyone knows what tamarind looks, tastes, or feels like, and I wanted to give it a little shine.  It’s a fantastic ingredient for the enthusiastic cook and keeps for like ever in your fridge.

One amazing thing about tamarind is that it’s found in so many different cuisines!  It’s indigenous to Africa and eaten throughout the continent but has made its way into South Asian, East and Southeast Asian, Australian, Mexican and other Latin American cuisines.  The tamarind chutney I grew up eating is similarly prepared to the tamarind pulp in Mexican food that’s used in marinades, sweets and even soups.

The pods in the picture are ripe tamarind, and, within these is the sticky, reddish brown pulp that surrounds seeds and contains large, sinewy threads.  The flavor is somewhat like a date but far more sour and acidic and with less sweetness.  This is not the easiest stuff to find, so I’m also showing you the wet, seedless, Thai tamarind blocks that are my preferred tamarind to cook with and that I get from the Asian stores.  To extract the pulp, juice, or make a chutney, knobs of this block may be soaked in boiling water and then squeezed (with your best cooking tools, your hands!) and passed through a strainer.  You want to use a spoon or something to press the pulp against the strainer to get the most you can out of it.  You can then resoak the strained pulp to get a second juicing if you like.

If you cook the resulting liquid down, you’ll get the concentrate form of tamarind, which I haven’t shown and which is also in stores.  To me, it doesn’t have quite the same flavor as the home-extracted version but is completely legit to cook with.  Whether home-done or store-bought, this concentrate makes a fantastic base for a vinaigrette, adds tartness and depth as a marinade for grilled chicken breasts (a nice alternative to the balsamic versions out there), makes a killer version of lemonade, and generally adds a complex, sour quality to anything to which you add it.

Tamarind is a post from: Aliya LeeKong