Our combination of banana and tamarind came about because of several coinciding developments. First of all, we were working with a tamarind sauce balanced with maple syrup and orange juice. It was flavorful, though the consistency was off. I was looking for an atypical thickener and noticed some slightly underripe bananas. I folded these bananas into the tamarind base and allowed the mixture to cook down and the flavors to marry. When the bananas had taken in a fair amount of the tamarind, I puréed the mixture into what had the consistency of chocolate pudding. I reserved some of the mixture to make chips and cooled the rest down for later use. The thickening qualities of the banana created a dense, gelatin-like base. (I can actually dice the banana-tamarind in its chilled state.) The banana acted not only as a thickener but also as a soft medium to tame the intensity of our tamarind sauce. We first used the banana-tamarind with crispy bass, though many more combinations are in the works.
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