Kheema Matar

On Friday night I made Kheema Matar, a North Indian dry minced curry of lamb and peas to accompany the chapati I was making. The recipe came from the food of India, a recently purchased cookbook and quickly becoming one of my favorites. The recipe itself was quite easy and rather enjoyable to make. I loved the layering of the spices and other ingredients, rather than dumping them all in at once and creating a big mush, each spice and ingredient went in at a certain time, and was cooked for a certain amount before the next item was added. It’s an interesting way to create a dish, one that’s built upon gradually so that all the individual flavors and textures stand out on their own yet blend to create a complex and wonderful meal. I was reminded of the ragu I made recently and how that too was a layered and complex dish.

Before I cook I always read through a recipe to make sure I have all the ingredients on hand, and if not, then a list is made so that I can pick up what I’ll need. I also like to read through to make sure there are no surprises somewhere in the middle of cooking, like suddenly finding out that you need to wrap your meal in cacao leaves and bury it in nutrient rich red soil 2 feet under the ground for two days or something. Reading through the recipe on Friday I remember being a little confused by one thing. The recipe called for 2 tablespoons of ground coriander during the main cooking and then 5 tablespoons of finely chopped coriander at the end of the cooking, for the life of me I wasn’t understanding what the difference was and so I made up in my mind what that might be. I set off to the store and bought coriander seeds thinking that once ground in my spice grinder it would equal the finely chopped stuff called for in the recipe. OH! How wrong I was! I should assure you that I didn’t ruin the dish at all, it was quite tasty, but I did use the wrong ingredient. I found this out quite by accident on Saturday after watching the movie Bend it like Beckham. The dvd contains extra material, one thing being a short film of the Director making Aloo Gobi while her mother and aunt look on. Towards the end of the recipe the director starts to chop some fresh coriander and add it to the dish. My mouth dropped open and I shouted at Tom “OMG! Fresh coriander is…CILANTRO!” Pretty funny to think that I had mistaken coriander seeds for fresh cilantro, which I had plenty of in the house too and could have saved myself a trip to the store! Oh well, it’s all part of the learning.

A couple of notes before I give the recipe; The recipe called for the use of 4 chillies, but made it optional depending on how spicy one wanted the dish. I decided to only use one chili because even if I wasn’t preggers, gone are the days when my friend R. and I used to order vindaloo so hot and so spicy that we had hoarse voices for days afterwards. Asafetida when stored in a glass jar will not release its strong odor until you open that jar. Then LOOK OUT because you can knock yourself across the room with that stink. It was never specified what type of oil to use so I used corn oil, which I've noticed is used a lot in Indian cooking. The recipe called for 2 tablespoons of tomato puree but I was pretty sure that being such a small amount, tomato paste was the equivalent, so I used that. The book is in metrics so you have to convert everything and sometimes I am not too precise, then again I’m never exactly precise when following a recipe unless I really force myself to be.

Roughly chop 2 onions, 4 cloves of garlic, a 2-1/2 inch piece of ginger and 1 chile. Throw them into a food processor and process until everything is very finely chopped. Heat about ¼ cup of corn oil in a large heavy bottomed frying pan over medium heat and add the onion mixture and 2 Indian bay leaves (cassia leaves) and fry for 3-4 minutes or until golden brown. Add about 1.5 lbs of minced lamb and fry for 15 minutes stirring occasionally and breaking up the large clumps. Add a pinch of asafetida and 2 tablespoons of tomato paste, stir, then lower the heat to a simmer.

After 15 minutes, add 1/4 teaspoon ground turmeric, ½ teaspoon chili powder, 2 tablespoons ground coriander and 2 tablespoons of ground cumin, stirring well and cooking for about a minute. Then, add 2 tablespoons of good thick yogurt, 3 teaspoons of salt and 1 teaspoon of ground black pepper and continue stirring and frying for about 5 minutes. Add 1 cup of water, a little at a time, stirring after each addition to make sure it has been absorbed by the meat, then add one package of frozen peas and the remaining chillies (if you desire a spicy dish), stir well and cover. Lower the heat and simmer for 20 minutes until the peas are cooked through. Actually the recipe says if you’re using frozen peas to add them 5 minutes before the cooking is done but I goofed and added them earlier, cooking them for the full 20 minutes. They were fine, not mushy at all, so all was well. Add ¼ teaspoon of garam masala and 5 tablespoons of chopped fresh coriander (which is also cilantro) stir until well incorporated, remove from the heat and serve.

Written by Deb on October 26, 2003 04:03 PM