…if what they want is GOOD food.

Maybe I watched too many episodes of The Naked Chef when I was younger, but in my mind, there are few kitchen activities more satisfying than giving a handful of aromatic herbs and spices a good pounding in a large, heavy mortar. Handmade pesto is great and whole-toasted spices don’t last a second in the bowl of a nice granite model, but for me, it’s in the act of making Thai curry paste that Iget the most out of one of my simplest kitchen tools.

Making curry paste the authentic way is a tactile and fragrant experience. In fact, things oftentimes get so aromatic that Lauren practically has to lock herself in our bedroom to avoid the pungent odor of toasted shrimp paste – an essential component of true Thai curry. Here I’ve included a recipe for a paste to create one of my all-time favorite curries: panang. Citrus notes dominate due to the heavy use of lime zest, lime leaves, coriander seeds and lemongrass.

While some of the key ingredients might be hard to track down and the overall process requires a fair amount of prep, as Victor Sodsook points out in his cookbook, True Thai: The Modern Art of Thai Cooking, curry pastes are “like money in the bank.” An hour of hard work will pay off with intense, complex flavor in future dishes. Couple this with the fact that many pastes last weeks in the refrigerator and several months in the freezer, and you have a culinary resource that lends completed dishes a taste that will seem like it’s taken hours to build.

Check back tomorrow for recipe that puts this amazing paste to good use; Panang Beef Curry.

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If you have any smoky chipotle black beans leftover, you might want to consider making this tostada — a dish that represents the marriage of two of my all-time favorite recipes.

Lucky enough to live only a short drive from the Napa Valley, I’ve had the opportunity to dine at Cindy Pawlcyn’s restaurants since I was a boy.  Having eaten amazing meals at Go Fish and Mustards Grill, the most memorable dish came on a visit to Cindy’s Backstreet Kitchen for lunch when I first tasted her famous Rabbit Tostada.  Imagine tender, juicy chile-braised rabbit nestled on top of warm, earthy black beans and a crispy fried tortilla.  Finished with a refreshing salad of herbs, thinly sliced cabbage and tart feta cheese, quite simply, this is as good as a tostada can get.

The other half of this recipe comes from pioneering chef, Robert Del Grande and his restaurant, Cafe Annie.  While I still haven’t had the opportunity to visit the iconic Houston restaurant, I have made his signature bar staple, Black Bean Nachos with Red Chile Beef.  With each tortilla chip covered in the perfect amount of over five different flavor components, it goes without saying that these were the most delicious and extravagant nachos I’d ever eaten.  However, at a prep time of close to three hours, I haven’t gotten around to making them as often as I would like.

Hence, the Red Chile Beef Tostada was born.  Taking key elements from each dish, I’ve put together a recipe that pays homage to the very best of each chef.  Rich, meaty red chile beef fills in for the guajillo-braised rabbit in Cindy’s dish, whereas a black bean topped tostada and refreshing cabbage slaw takes the place of the bite-size nacho in Robert’s.  The result is too delicious to describe. You’re just going to have to try it.

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I didn’t eat much roast beef growing up; the only place I ever really saw it was in sandwiches. In fact, my first encounter with this particular roast beef came about after a botched attempt at an Italian beef sandwich.  See, I have a thing for sandwiches.  I expect perfection: not too small, not too crusty, and each flavor component should burst with each bite. Unlike my reproduction of the BELT, my beef sando effort was doomed from the start. First I ruined the relish. Then I realized I wasn’t going to have nearly the jus required for an authentic, “wet” Chicago-style hoagie. Instead, I was left with a perfectly cooked,  medium-rare eye-round roast — there are worse problems, I know. Now Lauren begs me to make this “failure” every couple of weeks.

Employing a few slow-roasting techniques that I’ve picked up over the years as well some overnight salting, I’ve refined this recipe into a roast that yields superbly seasoned, tender and juicy meat.  Served alongside mashed potatoes with a horseradish cream sauce or steak sauce and you have a cheap dinner that definitely satisfies any serious beef cravings.

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