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Dessert

Tamarinds Preserved

A preserved tamarind product made by layering tamarinds with sugar and optionally boiling them in syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Tamarind and sugar work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 362 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Tamarinds Preserved

Ingredients

Directions

Layer in jars

  1. Shell the tamarinds and place a layer in a jar.

  2. Cover with sugar and repeat until the jar is filled.

  3. Seal the jar.

Pack for travel

  1. For travel, shell the tamarinds and press them tightly together to form a ball.

  2. Cover with a cloth.

Make the syrup and boil

  1. Make a syrup by combining equal measures of sugar and water.

  2. Boil the tamarinds in the syrup.

  3. Pour into jars for drinks.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Tamarind + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together362 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Tamarinds
Supply the fruit's tart, acidic flavour and soft pulp that softens further when boiled.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and draws moisture out of the fruit, helping to preserve it.

The step that matters

Cover with sugar and repeat until the jar is filled. Sugar draws water out of the tamarind pulp and makes it harder for spoilage microbes to grow. Each layer should be fully covered so no fruit is left exposed to air.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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