What tamarind contributes
Marinated grilled pork with Thai-herb tamarind larb dipping sauce and sticky rice.
Tamarind is fruit pulp with a distinct tartness. Research on Tamarindus indica identifies tartaric acid as a major contributor to its sour flavor, so it does not taste like simply squeezing lime. Here, it gives the dipping sauce a deeper, fruit-forward sourness. Change the acid and you change the character of the dip, not merely how sour it is.
What to know before ordering
This is a grilled pork dish served with a tamarind-based, herb-forward larb dipping sauce and sticky rice. The sauce is part of the dish, not an afterthought. Versions of larb-style dipping sauces can vary, but swapping tamarind for a different sour ingredient would make this a different sauce.
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Ingredient source: peer-reviewed tamarind research indexed by PubMed Central.