Kenji's Cooking Show | Keema Matar

Keema matar is a classic Mughal dish popular all over the Indian subcontinent. It's typically made with ground lamb or goat cooked with peas, but today I had pork and beef so that's what I used. I also mixed some fava beans in with the peas. It's delicious and a good place to dip your toes into the wonderful world of spices and South Asian curries.

Here I also pair it with homemade naan (I'll put up a video for that separately at some point) and potatoes cooked with spices that, since in the process of editing this video, I realize are similar to a thing called "Bombay Potatoes," which I will now go and obsessively look up, as is custom.

Recipe:

Equipment:
Spice grinder or mortar and pestle
Assorted bowls
A wok or Dutch oven
A wooden spoon
A box grater

Ingredients:
1 pound ground meat (such as lamb or beef)
1 cup water
4 tablespoons butter
1 large onion, finely diced
1 small cinnamon stick
1 star anise pod
2 bay leaves
Salt
4 cloves garlic
1 (2-inch) knob of ginger, peeled and cut into disks
1 small hot pepper, such as Serrano or japlapeño, finely minced
1 tablespoon freshly ground cumin seed
2 teaspoons freshly ground coriander seed
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
1 teaspoon ground turmeric
1 teaspoon ground dried chili (such as kashmiri powder, or any other spicy chili powder you'd like, or not spicy if you don't want spice)
1 large beefsteak tomato, cut in half
1/2 pound shelled fresh peas or frozen peas, thawed
Big handful chopped fresh cilantro

1. Combine the meat and water in a bowl and squeeze with your fingers to make a kinda loose meat sludge. Wash your hands and set the meat aside.

2. Heat butter in a wok or Dutch oven until melted. Add the onion, cinnamon stick,  star anise pod, and bay leaves and cook over medium-high heat, stirring, until onion is deeply browned, about 10 minutes. Add garlic, ginger, and minced hot pepper and cook, stirring, until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add the ground spices and cook, stirring, until fragrant, about 30 seconds.

3. Hold the cut-side of one tomato half against the large holes of a box grater with the open palm of your hand against its skin. Grate the tomato directly into the wok, leaving the skin behind. Stir the wok, then add the meat/water mixture and stir again.

4. Cook, covered, until the sauce has reduced to a rich gravy, about 12 minutes. Stir in peas and cook for a minute longer, then stir in the cilantro. Serve.

Grilled potato salad recipe:
https://www.seriouseats.com/2015/06/h...

The knives I'm using here (these are not ads, I do not take sponsorships or do ads):
Wusthof 3.5-inch paring knife: https://www.amazon.com/W%C3%BCsthof-4...

KAN Core knife: https://www.amazon.com/KAN-8-inch-Dam...