Preparing to preserve Tamarind for the whole year.

With the start of the summer season, Tamarind started to come into the market. Due to its unique sour and sweet flavour, it is an essential ingredient of so many Indian recipes.

Even though tamarind pastes and pitted tamarind is available round the year in the market but we have the tradition to preserve season's fresh tamarind for the coming year, at the home.

It is a little bit of a laborious process, to clean and remove seeds of it but in the end, we can enjoy the fresh taste of tamarind, in every bite of the recipe in which it is used.

Tamarind paste available in the market contains some preservatives and chemicals and it is in the semisolid state so its freshness doesn't remain intact and ultimately it changes the taste and flavour of the recipe. Pitted tamarind available in the market also not fresh as it is not stored in a cold place always and there are high chances of worms infested in the market bought packet. Colour and flavour both changes if it is not preserved properly before reaching to us.

As I said the process of cleaning and removing seeds is easy but somewhat time-consuming. It took me about 2-3 hours to clean and remove the seeds of 2 kg tamarind. The yield was about 1 kg tamarind. Yield also depends on the quality of the tamarind. Care must be taken while buying that it must be pulpy and thick. The taste should be sweet and sour.

I have taken some pictures of the process of cleaning and removing seeds hope you would like and enjoy the freshness of this amazing food ingredient.

First of all, it is kept in the sunlight for at least 2 days to get it dry. It makes the cleaning and deseeding process a little bit easier.

_{Getting ready with stone hammer}

_{Removing outer skin}

_{Removing seeds}

_{It's all messy but satisfying job}

_{Final outcoeme}

Once it is clean it is ready to store. As the climate in India is hot for at least 8 months and humid for 3-4 months so we cannot store it at room temperature. It must be stored in the refrigetaror to keep it fresh all the time.

Before storing it finally in the refrigerator I again kept it in the sunlight for a day as it helps to make it extra dry and sanitize.

Tamarind stored in this way remains always fresh and gives an amazing taste to your recipes.