Friday 19 July 2013

Vegetarian keema

When I turned vegetarian, 20 years ago now, I remember people asking me whether I missed bacon? Apparently bacon is the tease/temptation that ruins many a would be vegetarian. Not me. What I always missed was a good samosa. A meat samosa. The filling for a decent meat samosa, i.e those that my gran and mum made was keema. Traditionally, gujarati style, this is made with lamb mince. Since the day I turned vegetarian, the only somosas I was presented with were vegetable based and spiced differently.
 
I therefore had to take matters in to my own hands. If I wanted keema, then I needed to make it myself. With thanks to Quorn, who in the latter part of my 20 years created a suitable vegetarian mince. I can now eat keema and a non vegetable based somosa.
 
What you will need
 
250g vege mince
1 onion
2-3 cloves garlic
Thumbnail sized ginger
8 whole cloves
8 whole black peppercorns
Cinnamon stick
2 tea spoons ground coriander
2 tea spoons ground cumin
1 tea spoon garam masala
1/2 tea spoon turmeric
1/2 teaspoon of chilli powder
1 tin chopped tomatoes
1 table spoon of tomato puree
3-4 green chillis
2 handfuls of green peas
 
Firstly, chop the onions, garlic and ginger. Saute these in some oil until they have softened. Add all the spices and season. Cook the spices off for 1 minute before adding the tinned tomatoes, tomato puree, chillis, peas and vegetarian mince. Cook the keema for 15-20 minutes until the sauce has reduced.
 


 
Serve as part of a thali, or just by itself with rice or breads. My post on how to make rotlis is at http://gipsytoast.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/rotlis.html
 
This is a really easy and simple curry to make aswell, so midweek dinner keema, it often is. Also, not that I want to advocate this, but clearly, the vegetarian mince can be replaced for lamb mince.
 
Alternatively, this can be reduced a little bit more and stuffed inside filo pastry to make a somosa. More on this to follow. My thali is getting really big. Although, I guess it's no surprise that a lot of my cooking is Indian.
 
 

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