New Delhi, May 2 -- The first thing my grandmother did when she entered the kitchen each morning was say a quick prayer and soak a ball of tamarind. Be it sambar, rasam, kuzhambu, kootu or thogayal, tamarind extract was a must, and starting the soak early meant the tamarind extract was ready by the time cooking began. True to that lineage, tamarind features in almost every south Indian inspired recipe I have shared in this column over the years. I think of it as the ingredient that rounds off everything else and brings harmony to a dish. Salt, heat, sweetness, it balances them all like the backbone bassist in a jazz band, the one nobody notices, but without whom the rest of the band wouldn't sound right.

Indian cooking uses acid in so ma...