Make: Darina Allen’s Tantalising Tamarind Water

Try Darina’s authentic take on tamarind water, picked up fresh from her travels to the Far East.?It’s an ideal?ingredient in her Myanmar chicken curry – recipe only in our gorgeous new March-April issue, on shelves now.

Tamarind water

YOU WILL NEED
a piece of tamarind pulp, the size of a mandarin orange (available from specialist food stores)
6 fl oz (175ml/3/4 cup of hot water

METHOD
1 Tear a lump of tamarind, about the size of a mandarin, off the block. Soak it for a minimum of 2 hours or overnight in hot water in a small non-metallic bowl or cup. (The water should cover the tamarind.)
2 Push the tamarind pulp through a strainer with your clean fingers. Keep pressing until just the fibre and seeds are left in the sieve. Scrape all the pulp from the outside of the sieve. Use extra water, if necessary, to separate the pulp from the fibres. Discard the seeds and fibre.
3 Add to Darina’s delicious Myanmar curry (see the March-April issue for the recipe). Enjoy!

Image:?View over the temples and pagodas of old Bagan, courtesy Darina Allen