tweeting toward keema

Don't know what keema is? Neither did I until I asked Twitter what I should do with some ground lamb. Thanks, Twitter!

(more specifically, thanks, @marlenaspieler!)

So I Googled around a bit and kind of smushed together a few online recipes' worth of lamb keema approaches, like this one and this and that. I had just about everything I needed, ground lamb and peas and shallots and spices.

Including some spices I don't get around to using that often...

 
Unfortunately browning up ground lamb is so very not photogenic, which is why you'll only get one picture of that stage, thusly:

 
But for more photogenic purposes I would like to point out that the coriander and fennel seeds you can kind of see above were toasted in a dry pan and then cracked/crunched a bit in the much more lovely-to-look-at mortar and pestle pictured below the jump:

 

 
(I keep trying to shrink this picture and it keeps not working. Perhaps TypePad likes the picture as much as I do. Pretty!)

Then I added some tomatoes, about a cup's worth, from a bag of frozen pulp (which takes us back again to the more descriptive but less eye-catching parts of the process):

 
 
And whatever hot peppers I could muster from the cupboard:

 
After some simmering, I decided to take a chance and go with an addition only one of the recipes mentioned: a quarter-cup of yogurt, added early and simmered with the rest of the sauce. When I tasted it at first I regretted the addition, but after 20 minutes or so of good simmering, it settled down and added a nice creamy note behind the acidity of the tomatoes.

Then, right before serving, the last addition: thawed frozen peas, to green up the proceedings.

 
... stirred in, of course...

 
One of the recipes I read described keema as "kind of an Indian chili", and while the flavor profile is totally different and anyone who put peas in a chili would be eternally exiled from the state of Texas, from a texture perspective, I can kind of see where they're coming from.

So the saucy deliciousness of the meaty, creamy, tomato-y keema could either be eaten by itself or on top of something delightfully starchy. And Chez Simmer we took two different approaches.

My husband suspected, quite rightly it turned out, that the bolognese-like qualities of the keema meant it would go very well with pasta:

 
 While I chose to take mine straight up:

 
With just a little something on the side:

 

Comments

[Russ]

Topped with some mashed potato, you'd have a Punjabi-tinged shepherd's pie. Anything with stewed lamb is a winner with me. Also: I regularly add garam masala when mixing up burgers... adds a nice warm undertone.

[air jordans]

Thank you share with us your idea.our idea is good, I have nothing to say