Cultivated By Caryn w.guests Brittney Lim & Sashi Kumar of Tamarind Heads BBQ Sauce

[Spanish] Hello and welcome to the Cultivated by Karen Show. I'm your host Karen Antonini. This show is a blend of culture, cuisine and comfort. So if you're interested in exploring culinary and cultural experiences, learning about people whose love for food and drink have inspired enterprises and discovering a few new recipes, you've come to the right place. Welcome friends! I am thrilled to introduce my guests today, Brittany Lim and Sashi Kumar, co-founders of award-winning Tamarind Tets Barbecue Sauce. Their barbecue sauce replaces traditional tomato and vinegar bases with tiny nutrient-packed tamarind, offering a globally-inspired flavor profile and often described as a better for you condiment with simple natural ingredients and no preservatives. Brittany is a third-generation Malaysian-American culinary innovator with a passion for connecting modern American consumers with authentic Asian flavors and traditional ingredients. Sashi is a visionary entrepreneur, born in India who brings a deep knowledge of tamarind's significance in South Asian cuisine. Tamarind Head's mission is to celebrate the cultural richness and culinary versatility of tamarind by bringing its bold global flavor to American kitchens. Welcome to the show, Brittany and Sashi, it's such a pleasure to speak with you today. Thank you so much, we're so happy to be here. Thank you, Hunky. We're excited to have you on the show. Oh, well, I'm so thrilled. You were so kind to send some samples of your barbecue sauces to me and they were an absolute hit in our family as I couldn't wait to tell you just before the show that my youngest son in particular said, "You said this is my favorite barbecue sauce ever." So we made Roamster. Yes, we made Roamster fresh market and for a very dear friend who loves tamarind and she was thrilled. So we are so happy. That's wonderful to hear. We always like hearing from fans. You know, it's one thing to have won the big award, but we always like hearing from people who are actually buying the sauce and using it and becoming fans. Oh, yes. Well, you've got some lifelong ones here. So before we get into all that, Brittany, I'd love to hear about your background growing up in Malaysia and your memories of tamarind. Yeah, so I was born here in the U.S. but we spent summers going to visit my mother's family in Malaysia. And if you're not familiar with that country's cuisine, it's really a melting pot of Southeast Asian flavors. So Malaysia pulls from the flavors of Thailand, of India, of Indonesia, Chinese immigrants who came there, which is my mom's family. And so I probably. You know, I don't have a distinct memory necessarily of tamarind in particular. It's just embedded in so many of those pizzerians. But if I were to call out one, it would be probably like Nonya cuisine, which is Chinese cuisine that's influenced by the Malay culture and Indonesian culture. And one big dish they have there is called Laksa, which is sort of a spicy noodle soup that's got a tang of tamarind in it. And it's delicious. It's a delicious part of the world if you've never been. And it uses tamarind a lot in all of its different cuisines. That's so interesting. Okay. And so Sashi, what are some of your childhood memories of tamarind growing up in India? Yeah, I mean, I think it was really cool and really kind of. I got to start out about this project and going forward. Tamarind is just so ubiquitous. It's just kind of your neighborhood tomato. And that's where the tamarind tomato comparison comes from. So for me growing up and having visited with my family a bunch over the years as well is. It's not really thought about second. It's just like, "Oh yeah, let's go make this food. Let's go make this to all recipe. Let's go make this curry recipe. Let's go make a vegetable dish." And it's just a daily part of what people grab from the local market. And the local store. And so it's so richly available. And tamarind just grows kind of wildly in the equator countries, which is really neat. And for me, it's kind of when I came here when I was young, I grew up on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. And now I love the fact that we can bring these flavors that to me are just normal and just natural. And that's what gets me really excited. Absolutely. So for our listeners, before I jump into more of your story, for our listeners who may not be familiar, what is tamarind and what would you say? How could you describe the taste of it? So tamarind is actually a fruit, a superfruit. It grows on a tree. And it looks like a lugium. So it's kind of a curved, looks a little bit like a date, a pod with a sticky kind of flesh inside. And it is a mix of tart, tangy, sweet sour, umami. So it's got that complexity in it that lends itself to so many different dishes around the equator. It's a really versatile flavor. So it's used in in candies in Mexico. It's used as a flavoring and pad Thai in Thailand. I'm in a lot of dishes that are in the Caribbean and parts of tropical Africa, because of those different flavor notes. And I understand that it changes when heat is involved, it becomes more carmely. Is that correct? Yes. It has more of that caramelization, a little bit of that caramel flavor when it hits the heat. And then of course, depending on the spices that you add to it, you can really bend it in a lot of different directions. Mm-hmm. Okay. So, all right, so, Soxie, I'll let you take this and of course, Brittany, you jump in. How did Tamarind heads begin? You know, I answered a little bit in the beginning of my first question, but it started with just recognizing that there's this unique flavor profile that's just kind of missing. And it's this extra element of tart and tangy kind of how Brittany explained it. That wasn't a part of what you could just go and grab at the grocery shelf here. And as we continue to grow and we now have a child, it's just an ingredient that's been missing. That is so easily inputted into what we can eat here as Americans and what, you know, I normally go to the store and buy today. And when I think about when I think of Tamarind and what it fits best in, barbecue sauce is the first thing that comes to mind. It's actually one of the secret ingredients that's been a part of a lot of barbecue recipes throughout the country. And it just hasn't been pulled out and really given its its weight. So for us, when we thought of creating this brand and this Tamarind heads, it was, how can we really elevate the super fruit in a way where we capture its best, pro, pro pieces and components. And then let's package it in a way where we as Americans eat. We eat condiments. We eat new flavors to the pantry. We want it in the fridge. We want it on our table. And this is a product that can hit all of those components. And so for us, it's elevating the fruit what we knew and grew up with. And then also putting it in a way where it's the second nature for us to grab and really influence what we put on the table. And I can understand that replete because you're really replacing the typical tomato and vinegar that are used, I guess, in most barbecue sauces because Tamarind offers that sweet and tangy and has such a depth of flavor, though. It's very interesting to taste it and delicious. That's absolutely right. It hits so many really wonderful flavor notes in palettes. And I think Britain alluded to a little bit. But you know, one of the best things we've done and we spent a lot of years trying to develop is our focus is on keeping the recipe as simple as possible. We are just tamarind and five other ingredients. No conser of no preservatives, nothing else extra added. And when you treat the fruit the right way. You don't need any preservative. It's already included in a lot of the products on shelf right now have stabilizers and additives to make sure that you can get it a year from our to your level. Beautiful thing about tamarind. It's a super food because it's naturally a preserve do if you treat it the right way. That's what we've been able to pull out with our tamarind has bottles. Wow. That and that is so important. I think to to many, many consumers these days, especially as people are looking looking at the labels and being more health conscious, but to see that that's it. That is what you're getting is is really great. I particularly appreciate that. So what was the moment? How did you actually start the business? Like did you start making batches and I'm curious how this all began? Yeah, it's funny. It's in batches and a lot of it's from a lot of batches. My self Brittany, we have a corporate chef as well who I met with when I was in school and we just started coming up with recipes in the kitchen. My mother was involved. Bernice mother was involved. There's so much family involved here and that's what's cool about it. We're building a tamarind has brand so the first part about it is figuring out well how do we elevate tamarind the right way? How do we extract the best properties? I want to make sure that we're not adding a lot of extras. And so you're talking almost 10 years now where we really started first diving in hardcore on what this brand and what this product could be and really evolving it step by step one at a time and keeping true to it. Yeah, you know what it is. It's it's kind of like I first tasted I think for me the the gem and the spark of tamarind had started when I tasted the sauce that sasashi's mom had at a farmer's market. And she had dishes and food people would line up around the lock for this. When I think to it, it was like something familiar. And then I realized it was tamer and I think tamer does like that for a lot of people. It's this in a way that like food can kind of be a common language. I think tamer and is such a borderless ingredient that there's just a joy in tasting something being like, oh, I know this too from my world. It's kind of like when you meet somebody and you realize you have a common friend that you feel really fond about, right? Right. But that for us, it was like that for me for Sashi and then he mentioned our third co-founders actually a chef who worked very closely in Caribbean cuisine. And so he knew it from that context. And so we all kind of came around it and played with the sauce for some time and then the clean ingredient piece of it. I think a part of it was chef driven because he was always about flavor first and naturally real ingredients, real food tastes better. And then two for me and Sashi and our families, Sashi is right. Like it is very much a family business. There's so much talk these days about fiber, maxing and health hacking. And in my family and in Sashi, we just called that, like that's the way grandma cooks. She just uses real food. Right. And so we wanted to keep with that ethos with our sauce. Right. And so tell me where are the countries? Where is it most common to find tamarind or originally? Where would you find them? Find tamarind. Tamarind. So the history of tamarind is it started in parts of tropical Africa and then eventually spread all around the equator. So to South and Southeast Asia, to the Caribbean, to Latin America, there even like parts of the Middle East that we'll use it now too. So it's really in at least five different global cultures and is really used as a staple in all of those places, both as an ingredient in foods. So like Sashi's point in the beginning, people just kind of grab it the way we would grab it to NATO. But also interestingly, it's used medicinal in a lot of those cultures too. So taste, right. Also great for you. It's so good for you. So I know because I've seen it in farmers markets in Florida. And like I mentioned a dear friend of ours who I would always buy it for her because she loved it. But I actually never tried it ironically. And but she was always so excited to see it. And and that being said, what were the consumers? What was the reaction? I mean, did you find over the last several years that, you know, did most Americans know about it or they, you know, you've probably educated a fair number. So what was the reaction? You know, it was really interesting because I don't know that we knew what to expect because we know it from such different context. But I'd say there were probably three different reactions. So the first was like your friend. So if you are a person who has some kind of connection to any of those cultures where Tamarind is a staple, they are so excited to see what they see as their flavor finally represented on a mainstream shelf. And then the second piece is I would call them our barbecue aficionados. I say aficionados because these are people who are not putting corn syrup on their perfectly smoked brisket, right? These are people who are serious about barbecue. And they recognized it. And this is learning for me because somebody told me that in a lot of these big barbecue competitions, the folks who win their secret ingredient is Tamarind. And so I actually had a barbecue competition winner come up to me and say, Oh, Tamarind's a secret ingredient in a lot of the winning barbecue sauces. I use it in my homemade sauces. It makes so much sense that you just made the whole lot a lot of it. Wow. Oh my gosh. And then the third one is for people who aren't really familiar with it at all. But Tamarind sits in this perfect space where chances are like you, like even if you don't have a cultural connection to it, even if you're not grilling every weekend, you've heard the word before. And I find with people who are foodies, we're interested in just different flavors and like to travel and like a little bit of adventure, they're intrigued by it because it's something different. But it's not so different that they've never heard of it before. And so it's kind of more of this, aha, kind of moment for those people. And it's fun to see them uses and excused to kind of play in the kitchen with flavors and dishes. But they wouldn't have before because Tamarind, you know, before our sauce was just to your point, not super easy or accessible, I think for a typical American cook. Right. That's so true. That is. It's kind of like, oh, that's that's really interesting. We'll try this and had a great reaction. So are there I'm curious? Are there certain ingredients that need to be included for something to be called a barbecue sauce? I don't think it's in the La Tsausche Lena too. It's less from what I've heard from our barbecue friends, less the ingredients, more the style of cooking that characterizes barbecue, which is that slow, low heat to get to that caramelized fall off the bone, you know, sticky, deliciousness that we associate with barbecue, less so the ingredients and increasingly less so because I think as food culture has evolved, we've seen a lot more just global flavors and turn the mix in a lot of different categories, including, you know, we're one of the first movers in barbecue, but certainly Bachon's Japanese barbecue has shown that you can have a barbecue sauce that's more soy based, for example, and it's delicious. So we're not the only country that's done barbecue and there are a lot of new fun ways that you can play with it, including using tamarind. Right. So and what does tamarind do that tomatoes don't? So one thing I feel like it's something that I think would take some to talk about. Oh, the thing is that it's naturally tart and acidic and so that is why we don't have to put any preservatives in our sauce and yet, in spite of that, it shall stable for two years. So that's one thing. Another thing is under high heat, tamarind will caramelize instead of burn more easily. So even if you are a beginner of barbecue enthusiast, it's a it's a safe space to play. That's that's good thing. So okay, so Sasha, I'll throw this one to you. Tamarind is a super food. Can you tell me about some of the benefits? Yeah, absolutely. You know, one of the things that I really like it is that it's full of magnesium. So it helps you get a little bit of better night's sleep. So if you want to have a barbecue chicken wing at night before you go to bed, please put some tamarind on it. You will have a better night's sleep. So magnesium is one of those properties. It's full of antioxidants. There's some recent articles coming out, which is kind of wild, that it helps with some microplastics, et cetera. So there's a lot of really interesting components about this product that I'm an ingredient that's really going to start coming to light. That's and I think people, you know, that's one of those things like super foods are such a buzz, but a good buzz. I think people are really looking for this. So and then in 2024, McCormick recognized Tamarind as its flavor of the year. So that must have been a huge boost for you. Yeah, it was Kismet. So I should go ahead and tell the story of how we found that out. Yes, this is actually probably my most fun story to tell. So I was in the plant with our chef. And we have this was our first ever full bottle line coming out. This was, you know, yeah, it's a good tail end of 24 or 23. And as soon as we got that first bottle, we were congratulating each other taking photos. And then I got a message from one of our partners saying, "Oh, by the way, McCormick just released this like the flavor of the year." And then it happened the exact day that we had our first official production run. So it's Kismet's the right word that's pretty says. Absolutely. That's incredible. And then you've also one and award. Tell us about your big award. Yes. So the award we won is by the specialty food association. It's called the Sophie Award. And it's kind of like the Oscars of the food industry. So we had entered, I mean, like Sasha mentioned, we've been working on this sauce for years, but really had only launched at the end of 2024. And so we entered it kind of on a whim, understanding that there are so many barbecue sauces in the country and so many of them that are much, much bigger companies than ours. But I think the fact that we were so committed to doing cleaning ingredients and we spent a lot of time figuring out how to make tamarind the right way. So we actually don't use paste or concentrates. We source the raw fruit from farms around around the world and make it ourselves here. And I think that that paid off because the Sophie is very prestigious. They do just a blind taste test. So there's no branding. There's no, you can't give them any kind of upfront language about what it is and why it should taste good. They just, it's just cold hard. Does it taste right compared to the competition? And we won. And it was just this moment of wow, all of this work that we've done and all of this commitment we've had the integrity of this flavor and the integrity of the sauce has really paid off. That's, that's incredible because specialty food, I mean, there are so many vendors there, so many products like you say and to win that is really incredible. And congratulations. again. It's just that's that's pretty amazing. So your sauce can be used many other ways besides barbecue. Do you want to share some of those ways with us? Yeah, it's funny. I feel like people keep coming up with new ways to use it. So I'll I'll start in the main sashing and chiming with some of his favorites. We'll see folks using it as kind of the same way you would use a ketchup or a hot honey. Some are sauces. Do you have a little bit of a kick? So I've had people throw it on a peperoni pizza in the same way you would a hot honey. And I've seen people use it as a dip with french fries like you would a ketchup, but something that's a little bit more super food, a little bit more of a twist. You can even use it in drinks. So I have a little recipe I can share later with one of the drinks some of our Californian friends have tried. Great. Okay, Sashi, have any. Anything to add? Yeah, a lot of things, Bernie said, are 100% right? And then we like to think of it as almost, you know, you can have one bottle and you can have a full meal soup tonight. You know, you can start with an appetizer and use it as a condiment. You can use it as a dip. You can mix it with a yoli. We like to think of it. We can make an a yoli out of it by mixing it with mayonnaise. We like to think of it as a sprun of the fridge, front of the pantry so you can mix it with a lot of items. So you can start with as a dip, as an appetizer with some crudite. You can have your mains with some chicken, and you can have a protein, you want salmon, beef, etc. You can have a hamburger. You can make a salad resting out of it, which we have a really great fun recipe for because you can have it as a salad on the side. And then, you know, Brittany, I don't know if you're going to mention dessert, but we had a really great chef make a cornbread recipe out of it. So you can really take one bottle and have a phenomenal, really unique, really fun, interesting family outing for the whole, for everybody, the table. And it has tamarind in every single piece that you can bite into. And what's cool is that it's a culinary chameleon. So it can fit in in a lot of really different ways, which makes it fun to play with. And, you know, pleasing for a lot of folks. It's great to have in a kitchen, all those ideas I thought, oh yeah, that sounds really good. I'm going to have to enjoy some of those. So you have, I know we have the mild, and there's a spicier wine. What offerings do you have right now? Yeah. So right now we've got our, we've got our triplets. So we've got the spice honey, which is our mildest flavor that's still got, I describe the heat as a little bit of a tingle. You know, and then we've got our award-winning medium one. So it's a bit, it's our bold gold winner. And that's I think probably the one that you tried. The heat is more, more, I would say like an ember, like a warm back of the mouth heat that blooms and then fades. And then we've got our hot, which is a little fruity or a little sweeter and more of that type of the tongue spice. They're also good. So any new products on the horizon that you can share with us. So we are just now releasing our spiced honey mild one. So that is hitting the market imminently at the request. And that was something that just came from our fans. We heard from people they wanted something that was like a little bit more tingly. There's been a lot of interest in how honey plays with our sauce. And we've seen people using that. That's why I mentioned, you can think of it almost like a hot honey. I say that's the one where we see people using it similarly to a hot honey. So that is coming to shelves imminently and available on our website in the coming weeks. Oh, that sounds so good. And honey, I mean, that's such a great food as well as tamarind and the combination that sounds amazing. It takes good and nutrient dense. I mean, that's what we're trying to strive for. Absolutely. So on that note, we are going to take a quick break. But please don't go anywhere. When we come back, Brittany and Sasha will share some recipes with us. We'll be right back. How do you ever wonder how confectionaries are made? How spirits are distilled or how scallops are harvested? Well, I'm Karen Antonini, the host of the Cultivated by Karen Show. Each week will take you around the world from the shores of Nantucket to the hills of Donegal to the Dwarrow Valley. Our guests share their inspiring journeys, recipes, tips, insights, and more. Find us on Apple podcasts, I, Heart and Spotify. If you enjoyed the show, please don't forget to subscribe and like. Follow us at Cultivated by Karen Show on Instagram. Welcome back on your host, Karen Antonini, and you're listening to the Cultivated by Karen Show. For more information about this episode and others, please visit Cultivated by Karen.com and Cultivated by Karen Show on Instagram. I've been speaking with my guests, Brittany Lim and Sasha Kumar, about their award-winning vine of tamarind barbecue sauces, tamarind heads. So I'm going to turn it back over to you to let you both share some recipes with us that you can use your special sauces. Great. So we can give you a full meal like Tisashi's preview. There's a lot of different ways to use it. So I'll start with the classic chicken wing recipe. So if you've got barbecue sauce, the weather is warming up. You can throw some chicken wings on the grill. So for that, you're just going to use about four ounces of tamarind heads barbecue sauce, mix with four ounces of a dried red wine, a little bit of salt and pepper to taste. Mix that up. Code it. Code your wings. You can use about two pounds of chicken wings. We suggest letting it rest with a little plastic wrap over it in the fridge overnight. And then depending on your style, if you want to do it a little bit healthier, you can just throw them on a baking pan, 375 for about 40 minutes. Or if it's an outdoor kind of day, throw them on the grill, grill them up to look at that nice char and then pull them off and coat them with another layer of tamarind heads. And you've got some sticky, delicious tartanese sweet wings. That sounds great. Okay, what's next? Next, we call this our tamarind lada. And this was more fan-inspired. This is a drink you can do with barbecue sauce with our barbecue sauce. So it's inspired by Amish Lada. So you take about two tablespoons of tamarind and barbecue sauce. You juice one lime and six ounces of tomato juice. You mix that together. And you rim a little glass with some salt if you prefer and then pour that in, top it off with your favorite Mexican beer. And you've got a nice, refreshing little sip or for summer. That sounds so great. And I love on your website that you have recipes and I'm sure you're adding more. Like you said, the fan favorites, but it is, it's just so easy. I mean, you know, as a busy mom and coming home, I love to cook, but their nights, of course, when I'm busy, but I still want to give my kids a really healthy, good meal. And I think, oh, yeah, the barbecue sauce. Tamarind heads, I've got it. And it's ready to go. And it then the flavors all there. So yeah, I encourage our listeners to try it out. So where can people find more information about tamarind heads? And so they can go try it. Definitely our, we put up new recipes both from us and then our fans are always creating them to on our Instagram account. So that's at tamarind heads, one word. We also have our recipes on our website, www.tamarindheads.com. And then if you're looking to pick it up in stores, if you're in Texas, we're in central market locations. We are in the fresh market all along the East Coast. And some specialty stores around the Northeast region, including a fairway market in New York and did you go in suns and that's valley, little kind of groceries like that. And if you can't find us there, you're always welcome to purchase a bottle online. Fantastic. It's, yeah, so I found it at fresh market because I I needed to bring it to someone, especially someone so I had to bring it. But yeah, this is fantastic. Thank you so much. I can't wait to try your honey and and everything, anything else that you come out with. So thank you so much for being here today and make me see you at specialty food. We will, we will definitely be there. We'll have to get some child care goings. We actually, we launched this business when I was eight months pregnant with my first. So my gosh, I hear you on needing a simple, nutritious way to feed your kids. And so I love using our sauce just as an easy pantry staple to throw into stuff for her too. Definitely. You'll be there. Okay, fantastic. I look forward to seeing you there. And again, thank you so much for being here today. Both Sasha and Vaini. Thank you. You're so welcome. It's great. Thank you friends and fellow food officials for joining us today. I'd like to thank my producer, John Ionizi Park City Productions. See you next time for more culture, cuisine and comfort. [Music]