Wosie Woks Again.

Remember the other night I made chicken with tamarind? I ended my post with this: I went out today and bought another can of tamarind nectar and I'm thinking about doctoring the leftover chicken broth and mashing the bits of tamarind tur ... er ... bits. Maybe cooking it down somewhat to concentrate the tamarind flavor and trying it over the rice. Ahhh. Sounds like a plan.

So, that's exactly what I did today.

Here's the pitiful leftover chicken with the congealed fat on top and the brothy goodness underneath.

I scraped up as much fat off the top as I could.

Here's the skimmed off fat on the right and the jellied broth on the left.

I poured the leftover nasty-looking gelatinous mess, along with the tamarind pieces, into a small saucepan.

Poured in a can of tamarind nectar. And simmered for an hour or two until it was reduced by half or more.

Removed the tamarind pulp.

Removed the seeds from the pulp and mashed the pulp.

Returned the mashed pulp to the chicken broth.

Cooked down a bit more.

Then I poured the tamarind/chicken broth into another container. And I took a break. Let's see what Mr. Hawthorne is doing.

Ahhh ... I believe he's slicing jalapenos.

And filling a canning jar with the slices. And topping with a tablespoon of salt.

And pouring vinegar about 1/3 the way up.

Then pouring boiling water in the jar to fill.

My God, the man is a canning fool. Step back, ladies. He's ALL MINE.

Now, let's get on with tonight's dinner.

I have carrots, celery, broccoli, and onion.

Here's my crinkly carrot cutter.

My prepared veggies: snow peas, carrots, celery, peppers, garlic, onions, and broccoli.

On the left, is my tamarind/chicken joos mixture. On the right, is a cornstarch slurry, with sugar, rice wine vinegar, and soy sauce, with the tamarind mash ready to mix in.

Here's my tableau: On the right, my veggies. In the middle, my wok heating up. On the left, my rice finishing up. And also on the left, my cornstarch slurry/soy sauce/tamarind mixture. And my green bowl, waiting to receive the stir-fried goodies.

Into the pan, go the carrots and broccoli. Sauteed 'em then put in a bowl and covered with a dish.

Next, the onions, celery, garlic, and snow peas went in. Quick saute, then they joined the broccoli and carrots.

Shrimp go into the wok.

Quick toss of the shrimp. Do NOT overcook. Actually, you need to undercook at this point, since you're going to add in the rest of the veggies and the cornstarch/tamarind mixture to thicken.

Rest of the veggies go in with the shrimp.

Finally, I added the corn starch slurry with the tamarind likker in it.

And here's my stir fry.

Turned out, Youngest Hawthorne came home from college this weekend. He had two huge plates of this.

I asked both Hawthornes to dip into the tamarind joos. R: "How do you like it?" YH: "It's OK. It's good. It's ... different." MH: " It's sweet and sour. I can't identify it. I like it. Adds a little bit of tartness. By the way, the stir fry is delicious. But the shrimp is slightly overcooked."

This was a very nice, simple meal, notwithstanding the painful rendition of the tamarind pulp/nectar and chicken joos. Tasted good. Excellent flavors. Tamarind is an elusive flavor. Mr. Hawthorne had a sip out of the can of the nectar and described it as tasting like prune juice. Never having prune juice, I couldn't say. I'll never go to the trouble of using the pods again, but I might use the canned nectar. OK, I take that back. I still have half a bag of pods left, so I need to finish them up. If anyone has any ideas, please e-mail me. Or, Just Ask Rosie. You can rest assured that I will come up with something.