Daz Switalla Flavour Secrets No.1 The Strand Chef www.no1thestrand.co.nz

These days it's not hard to find prepared curry pastes in the supermarkets that produce outstanding results and you will find quite a variety of different types.

The traditional method of toasting spices, pounding chillies, and making your own paste is almost a lost art. The fresher the paste the more fragrance and flavour develops, and once you know the basics it's easy to add or subtract ingredients to refine your own unique paste.

From my travels in Asia and especially Malaysia watching street vendors prepare their own pastes, and blending together different spices, I have created a base curry for beef or lamb that works well every time.

This week as daylight saving kicks in and Autumn winds blow cool I thought it timely to share this simple curry recipe. By simple I mean it's not as simple as getting a prepared paste, but at least making your own paste you can make adjustments and you know exactly what goes into it.

Nonyan style beef curry 6 serves

Ingredients

1.5kg diced rump steak

¼cup cooking oil

2 brown onions finely chopped

4-6 cloves of garlic cloves

3 cm chunk peeled ginger

2 cm chunk galangal (frozen from Asian store)

1tablspoon coriander powder

2 teaspoons turmeric powder

2 star anise

4 cm piece of cinnamon stick

6-8 birds eye chilli

2-3 kaffir lime leaves

3 discs palm sugar

2 tablespoons lime juice

small bunch fresh coriander chopped

salt and pepper for seasoning.

300ml coconut cream

Method

To make any sort of curry paste a mortar and pestle is almost Essential. A modern blender can do some of the work but where is the love? The clonk, clonk and repetitive smashing and pulverising of the ingredients is quite satisfying; much like using a punching bag to vent some anger, working at it hard does produce a finer paste in a short time and the washing up's a breeze.

In the mortar put chopped ginger, garlic, reconstituted bird's eye chillies, star anise, galangal cinnamon stick, pound up as much as you can adding drops of lime juice. Toast off the turmeric and ground coriander briefly in an oven tray, add this to your mix.

In a large pot, batch seal off all the diced beef, seasoning well and set aside, brown off the onion in the same oil then add the paste. Cook until fragrant around 5 minutes stirring to prevent burning then add the meat back in. Add around 2 cups of stock or water and reduce the heat to a simmer, stirring occasionally for about an hour then add the coconut cream and the palm sugar lastly the chopped coriander cook for another ¾ of an hour at which time the curry should be thick and tender.

Serve

With basmati rice and accompany with naan bread and yoghurt.