Keema Matar (Minced Lamb with Peas)

Now this is one dish which was in a queue for a long long time to be posted in my blog. I absolutely forgot about it and it was shelved away for almost a year. Until recently, one of our friends asked about an Indian minced lamb recipe, I recollected that I have the recipe with me with all the photos taken stage by stage. My, My...How did I forget to share  this wonderful recipe with all of you. 

Minced lamb has quite a strong flavour of its own and it has to be well camouflaged with some other good ingredients which will balance everything, only to give a fantastic dish in the end. What better than Indian spices. A good balance of these spices when combined with meat and cooked well, will give you a classy Meat dish. 

Ingredients:

• 500 gms minced meat (lamb or mutton)
• 1 cup of fresh/frozen peas (boil and keep aside)
• 2 large onion (finely chopped)
• 4 large tomatoes (blend to make puree)
• 1 tbsp ginger-garlic paste
• 1 tbsp coriander powder
• 2 tsp cumin powder
• 1 &1/2 tsp red chilli powder (adjust to your level of spiciness) 
• 1 tsp garam masala
• 2-3 green chillies (finely chopped)
• 1 tsp cumin seeds
• 1 cup coriander leaves (finely chopped)
• 3 tbsp cooking oil
• salt to taste

Method:

1. Wash the minced meat in water and drain to avoid any lumps while cooking. Keep aside.
2. Heat oil in a deep based pan (Kadai) and the cumin seeds. Let it splutter. 
3. Now add the finely chopped onion to it. Saute well till it turns light golden. Then add the ginger-garlic paste. Its best, when you make fresh ginger-garlic paste by grinding 8-10 fresh cloves of garlic with 2 inch of ginger together. This is any day better than a store bought paste. 
4. Add the chopped green chillies to it and saute well for 2-3 minutes until the raw smell of the paste goes. Cook till the  the onion & the ginger - garlic paste is well done. 
5. Now add the tomato puree to the pan and cook well for 3-4  minutes until the tomato is well squashed with the onion paste.
6. Now add the red chilli powder, coriander powder, cumin powder and salt to taste. Cook well till the oil shows on the sides.
7. Add the minced meat at this stage to the onion-tomato mix and mix well until all the meat is coated with the paste. Add 100 ml of water to the meat and simmer the heat for 15-20 minutes. Stir frequently. 
8. The meat at this stage will be well cooked and the water in the gravy slowly starts to dry up. Stir well. I love the meat to be well golden.
9. Sprinkle some garam masala at this stage and add the chopped coriander leaves. More leaves the better. Then add the boiled green peas to the cooked meat and mix well. Switch off the heat.
10. Serve hot with warm rotis or naan & dal tadka!!