TAMARIND: Everything You Need to Know - Hot Thai Kitchen!

Tamarind, known in Thai as "makaam", is one of the most important ingredients in Thai cuisine. It is a staple in every Thai kitchen, and it plays a key role in popular dishes, such as pad thai! Many people cook with tamarind, but perhaps few know what the fruit actually looks like or how that brown liquid in the jar was made! I also get a lot of questions about tamarind in general, so here's a video to hopefully tackle them all. In this video I talk about everything from what the fruit looks like, how to eat a fresh tamarind, how to buy cooking tamarind, how to store it, and how to use it. If you still have unanswered questions, please feel free to let me know!
For more on Thai ingredients, check out this video on different salty sauces used in Thai cuisine:
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About Pai:
Pailin “Pai” Chongchitnant is the author of the Hot Thai Kitchen cookbook, co-host of a Canadian TV series One World Kitchen on Gusto TV, and creator and host of the YouTube channel Pailin's Kitchen.
Pai was born and raised in southern Thailand where she spent much of her "playtime" in the kitchen. She traveled to Canada to study Nutritional Sciences at the University of British Columbia, and was later trained as a chef at Le Cordon Bleu culinary school in San Francisco.
After working in both Western and Thai professional kitchens, she decided that her passion really lies in educating and empowering others to cook at home via YouTube videos, her cookbook, and cooking classes. She currently lives in Vancouver, and goes to Thailand every year to visit her family. Visit her at