Keema Pao

Disclaimer: The pics in this post are few and not of the usual quality, because they have been taken by yours truly instead of AK. He was too exhausted after the Banoffee project!
I used:

1 kg mutton keema/mince (apart from the Indian sub-continent, anything sold as mutton is actually lamb and not goat. So it’s a luxury for these guys when they visit!)

5-6 onions, chopped

½ cup frozen peas

1 tbsp ginger paste

1 tbsp garlic paste

I pack tomato puree (usually 200 gm I think)

1 tsp garam masala

½ tsp red chilli powder

½ tsp haldi (little less than that actually)

1 tsp salt

2 tbsp vegetable oil

1 tbsp ghee

Whole/ Khada Masala:

2 sticks cinnamon/dalchini

2 black cardamom

4-5 green cardamom

2 whole dried red chilli

1 tsp whole black pepper

Garnish:

2 eggs

Dhania/Coriander

I halved the whole red chillies and crushed up the cardamoms in my mortar & pestle. Then I heated the oil & ghee in my non-stick saucepan. Added the whole spices to the pan and stirred them around on high heat for a moment, until my kitchen was fragrant with the heady scent of frying spices!

I then added the onions and fried/roasted them (on medium heat to avoid burning & sticking) until they were nice and brown. (On retrospect, I should have used 2 more onions for more masala & colour. But I cheated and added a handful of my Mom’s divine fried onions at a later point!)

I then added the ginger and garlic pastes and stirred them around for a minute. Then I added the washed and rinsed keema/mince and stirred it around.

I then added the salt, haldi, red chilli powder, garam masala and mixed it well. (Bear in mind that this was mild as I was also cooking for children. Under normal circumstances, I would have added another ½ tsp each of red chilly powder & garam masala & probably some fresh green chillies too). I roasted it on medium heat until the meat went from a “kaccha” pink to white-ish & then light brown.  

I then added the puree, the peas, 2 cups of water and brought it to a boil.

Then I covered and cooked it on the lowest heat setting for 5 hours. Personally, I think that the longer red meat is cooked, the more tender and delicious it is. While this was cooking, I boiled, peeled and quartered 2 eggs. When I was ready to serve, I poured the Keema into the serving bowl, arranged the egg quarters on top and sprinkled it generously with fresh chopped coriander/dhania and a sprinkling of fried onions. Serve with buttered pao (bread).

Afterthought: next time I would add the peas closer to the time of serving to retain the colour. This time it just blended in with the keema.