In article >,
XmisterIS > wrote:

> Hi all, I am new here!
>
> I am a European, but I absolutely love both eating and cooking Asian and
> Indian food.
>
> Anyway, I digress ... I bought some Massaman Curry paste from my local
> Asian supermarket. The recipe called for tamarind paste, but all they
> had in the supermarket were big blocks of tamarind fruits (with seeds)
> squished together into a big square block.
>
> I bought the tamarind block and went ahead and made the curry with it
> anyway ... it was absolutely delicious - literally indistingushable from
> something I would expect to be served in a good asian restaurant - so I
> was pleased with the result!
>
> The only problem was that I had to keep picking the tamarind seeds out
> of the dish as I ate it!
>
> Now I really like the flavour of the tamarind from the block, but how
> can I turn it into a paste?
>
> I am thinking of boiling the whole block in some water until the
> tamarind flesh falls away from the seeds, then I can pick the seeds out,
> then continue to boil the mixture until it reduces to a paste that I can
> cool, put in a tub, and freeze.
>
> But will that impair the flavour of the tamarind? What do you guys
> think?

The "standard" method is to hack off the amount you need for a given
dish (usually a tablespoon or so, maybe more...), soak it in hot water
for a while (~10 minutes is fine), then strain through a sieve and
mash the pulp through to make the paste. Your suggested method might
work, but will leave you with a _lot_ of tamarind paste to store. I
don't _think_ it goes bad particularly quickly, but I don't know.