Stir spice pastes into your cooking - hot and pungent or mellow and fragrant - and experience irresistible explosions on your palate. Here are instructions for making fourteen basic preparations - including laksa paste, chilli jam, satay spice paste, spiced tomato chilli pickle, preserved lemons, harissa, green curry paste, red curry paste and massaman curry paste - and over 100 recipes for dishes that use them as a basis. Whether it's fast, hot cooking such as stir-frying or barbecuing, or long, slow methods that don't require constant attention, such as braising, these recipes require minimum effort and give maximum flavour. Christine Manfield is a staunch advocate of the philosophy that life is too short to eat bad food. KEEP STIRRING.