Description
This sweet, sour tropical tamarind jam is a fun, easy gift for family and friends!
Ingredients
Scale
- 1 14-ounce package of seedless tamarind seedless
, or 1 1/4 c. tamarind paste - 1 to 1 1/4 c. sugar, to taste
- 1 pinch of salt
- Two 8 oz. jam jars
, or 1 1/4 c. 
Instructions
- Place the seedless tamarind in a bowl. Put water in the bowl until the tamarind is just covered.
- Let the tamarind sit for 10 minutes to soften up.
- Use your hands to squeeze the tamarind, and break it up.
- As you squeeze, take out the stems and *seeds and throw them away.
- As you squeeze the tamarind, it will ooze out between your fingers and form a paste in the bowl. Once the seeds and stems are mostly gone (a few always seem to escape and that’s ok), and a paste has formed in the bowl, take a cup of the paste and put it in a small pot.
- Add the sugar and mix.
- Warm the mixture to medium low heat.
- Stir until the sugar has dissolved.
- Add a pinch of salt.
- Taste the mixture. If you think it needs more sugar, feel free to add more. The jam should be thick enough without you needing to add anything else, but if you want it extra thick feel free to make a slurry of 3 tsp. or so of cornstarch with 1 tsp of water and then add it to the jam at the end and stir until thickened.
- Add the jam to your jam jars, and seal them.
- If you don’t want to use the jam right away, feel free to boil the jars for 10 minutes in boiling water to seal the jars and preserve the jam. (I didn’t do this step. I just told people to refrigerate the jam, since it was quicker for me and not a big deal to refrigerate it).
- Use the jam with toast, on crackers or with cheese! Just experiment, and let me know what you like it with best!
Notes
*Even though I always buy seedless tamarind at the Asian store, there always seems to be a few seeds and stems left in it still!
Out of one seedless tamarind package, I get about 1 1/4c. to 1 1/2c. of tamarind paste. When I made this for Christmas I bought three packages of seedless tamarind and filled up about six 8 oz. jars with it. Just remember for 1 cup of tamarind use about 1 cup of sugar to taste.
- Prep Time: 20 minutes
- Cook Time: 10 minutes
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 2 8oz. jam jars