Introduction

Tamarind is used in India in the form of pulp. It is used as a souring material in our daily food preparations. India is the chief producer of a regular commercial crop of tamarind fruit in the world with an estimated production of over 3 lakh tonnes per annum. It is particularly abundant in Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh,Karnataka, Tamilnadu and Orissa. Most of the production is marketed in the country to meet the internal demand while a small portion is exported to various countries in fresh and dried form.

Use

Tamarind pulp is used as a condiment in several culinary preparations. The present method of extracting the solubles from the fruit pulp by soaking in a water and squeezing out the extract by hand is unhygienic, inconvenient and wasteful. Also the pulp during storage loses its original brownish red colour and becomes black. It becomes soft and sticky and liable to insect infestation due to the presence of seeds. Export of tamarind pulp as well as internal marketing therefore presents a lot of problems. CFTRI has developed a process for the manufacture of a concentrate form of pulp.

Process

The process developed at CFTRI consists of extracting all the water solubles from the fruit pulp by boiling with water under optimum conditions, concentration of the clarified extract (under vacuum) to about 65-70% solids and packing in suitable containers. The final product becomes quite viscous and sets to a jam-like consistency on cooling. Tamarind seeds available as a by-product could be converted into tamarind kernel powder, which is used for sizing in textile industry.

For details contact, e-mail : ttbd@cftri.com                                            Top