Low Fat Vegan Cooking

Tamarind Sauce

I love Thai food. It has so many wonderful flavors, and it translates so easily to low fat vegan cooking. I plan several Thai dishes in the coming months in LFVC.

I first had tamarind sauce when i picked up a bottle of it at an Asian market. I liked it, but didn’t really think of a use for it until I realized it was often an ingredient in Pad Thai noodles, which I just love. Then I started experimenting with it, and found it lends a subtle rich flavor to other Thai type dishes. Next, I discovered plain tamarind, which I found in a different Asian market in a block about the consistency of dried fruit, which of course it is. The tamarind sauce I was using in a bottle had tomato in it, which of course isn’t a native product of Asia. However, the tamari in this sauce would have probably been fish sauce originally in Thailand. Anyway, you can make Tamarind Sauce when you have time, and refrigerate it for about a week, or freeze it for a quick seasoning to greens or mixed vegetables, fresh or frozen.

Tamarind Sauce

Makes 4 servings
Preparation about 40 minutes, but you need to start several hours ahead of serving
Freezes well
Can be made ahead

¼ c. dried tamarind
1 ½ c. water
2 inches fresh ginger, grated
2 scallions, chopped fine
2 T. Thai Red or Green Curry Paste
1 T. miso
1 T. tamari
¼ c. rice vinegar
4 t. sugar
¼ c. fresh cilantro, chopped
¼ c. peppermint leaves, chopped

Chop the tamarind up into little pieces and stir it into the water. Set aside for several hours or refrigerate overnight.

Put the tamarind mixture in a blender and process until smooth. Then strain by putting the mixture in a sieve over a bowl, and stirring it with a spoon or rubber spatula until most of the mass has passed through the sieve. This takes several minutes of stirring. What you have left when you’re done is a thick paste in the bowl and a thicker paste in the sieve with seeds and fibers. Discard this.

Mix in the rest of the ingredients. You can put the mixture back in the blender to make it smoother if you want. Serve or store in the refrigerator or freezer.

Garnish with cilantro and/or peppermint leaves.

In the photograph, the Tamarind Sauce tops brown rice and asparagus. We found the asparagus at CostCo this week, to our surprise, from Mexico, and not too expensive.

I looked at many recipes as I tried different tamarind sauces, but i am especially indebted to Susan at Fat Free Vegan for the Coconut Ginger Sauce recipe, which helped me decide on the ingredients in my final sauce.

Nutritional information – not guaranteed to be accurate:
Per serving – 54 calories/1.2 g protein (8%)/.1 g fat (2%)