I need a pestle and mortar

Stone is the best bet, IMHO. Granite or marble. I've seen decent ones at Asian and Mexican supermarkets for cheap. If you buy real stone, you should season it with rice: put in a big handful of raw rice and crush it into a powder. Repeat 2-3 times, until the inner surface of the mortar isn't shedding any stone dust. Wash & it's ready to use. Esp important if you buy a softer, more porous volcanic stone version.

I use my cream colored travertine Italian M&P pretty often to make spice/seasoning pastes.


Have never used one in stainless steel. Seems like the surface would be too smooth to "bite" into the stuff being crushed.

ETA: don't bother with a wooden pestle. I find you need the weight of a stone pestle to do any actual crushing.

[quote]Is polished or unpolished better?[/quote}

I prefer the unpolished granite ones. I have an old polished marble one and the only good thing I can say about it is it's easy to clean. I find a lot of things like seeds tend to slide around in it and are harder to crush.

I bought one in Mexico when my wife and I went for a cruise last year and it is unpolished granite and that thing really gets after whatever you are looking to grind. It is harder to clean, but it's not much of a trade-off.

Pestle?

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Pestle

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Pestil

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I could use some tips on how to season it (after years of attempted use). It’s so rough the herbs/etc I try to use get stuck in the bowl. So much so, I quit using it a while back.

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The way I seasoned mine was to put some plain water in the thing and grind away to smooth out any tool marks/lines in the manufacturing process. Depending on how it was made and level of finish inside the bowl, this may take a while. You want both the mortar and pestle to be very smooth before going to the next step.

Let it dry out after using just the water to smooth out the inside the bowl, then just put plain rice in it and grind that into a flour. Do this a few times and you should be good to go.

Never use soap when cleaning, just water and a rag.