Young tamarind fruit has a pliable brown skin and the inside greenish with whitish seeds. As the fruit matures the greenish insides turn brown and the pod becomes more bulbous. As the fruit dries out, the pod becomes stiff and brittle,the insides become pasty and the seeds turn brown.
The flavor of the greenish unripened tamarind is very watery, acidic and very sour. The ripened sticky pulp has a musky flavor and is sweet and sour due to the sugars and the acid content.
The food uses of the tamarind are many. The tender, immature, very sour pods are cooked as seasoning with rice, fish and meats in India. It is an important ingredient in chutneys, curries and sauces, including some brands of Worcestershire and barbecue sauce, and in a special Indian seafood pickle called “tamarind fish”.
The ripe tamarind pulp has many uses. Some recipes call for the pulp to be removed from the pod first, and others allow soaking in the cooking liquid and breaking the pod open in the liquid to release the pulp, then straining the mixture to remove the pieces of the outer shell. Tamarind can be added to soups, marinades or sweets.
Tamarind ade has long been a popular drink in the Tropics and it is now bottled in carbonated form in Guatemala, Mexico, Puerto Rico and elsewhere. The simplest home method of preparing the ade is to shell the fruits, place 3 or 4 in a bottle of water, let stand for a short time, add a tablespoonful of sugar and shake vigorously. For a richer beverage, a quantity of shelled tamarinds may be covered with a hot sugar syrup and allowed to stand several days (with or without the addition of seasonings such as cloves, cinnamon, allspice, ginger, pepper or lime slices) and finally diluted as desired with ice water and strained.
Reference: http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/morton/tamarind.html#Description
