I love a good keema, I’ve cooked many keema’s. Full of intense flavour and a wonderful low cost dish. A traditional street food dish of Indian and chicken keema pav is one of the best you can get.

A proper comfort food dish for the whole family. I’ve cooked the vegetable version a number of times, which again is a sensational dish.

Ingredients-

500g chicken mince (supermarket standard size tray)

4 / 6 brioche buns

3 tbsp of rapeseed oil

2 Indian bay leaves

2 inch piece of cinnamon

2 green cardamom pods lightly bruised

5 cloves

1 tsp of black peppercorns

3 medium red onions finely chopped

2 tbsp of garlic and ginger paste

1 tsp of Kashmiri chill powder

1 tsp of garam masala

1 tsp of fennel seeds

Pinch of mace

1 1/2 tbsp of ground coriander

1 tbsp of ground cumin

3/4 tsp of turmeric

125ml of passata

5 tbsp of natural yogurt

1 cup of chicken stock

4 green finger chillies

1 tbsp of butter

Good handful of coriander finely chopped

Salt to taste

Method –

I live dishes that most of the work is done in the prep. Being organised in the kitchen removes all the stress and makes the process so much easier.

Heat the rapeseed in a heavy based pan, I use my karahi pan. Once the oil is hot add your whole spices. Fry these off for 30 seconds or so to flavour the oil.

Follow the whole spices with the diced red onions , fry the onion off for about 5 minutes.

Once your onion has taken on a lovely colour add in the garlic and ginger paste. Stir and cook for another 30 seconds or so.

Follow this with all your dried spices with 1/4 of a cup of water, bring this to a rolling simmer.

Once it’s simmering add in the passata. Give this a good stir and simmer for 5 minutes.

Your kitchen will smell amazing. Add in the chicken mince. Push the mince to the sides of the pan to try and break up the meat to try and remove any lumps. Simmer again for another 5 minutes.

After 5 minutes the chicken will almost be cooked. The oils will rise to the side of the pan. Ensure you scrape all the goodness which has caramelised on the side of the pan back into the dish.

Stir in the natural yogurt a tbsp at a time. Once it’s all in the dish cook for another 3 minutes.

Pour in the chicken stock and simmer again for another 5 minutes.

Add the diced green chillies…….

Followed by the butter……..stir well.

Garnish the dish with the chopped coriander and season with salt to your taste.

Place your brioche buns in the toaster and gently toast so they take on a nice crust.

Once the buns are ready serve by spooning the keema mix inside them.

This is an absolute belter of a dish. Love the whole simple process to create this low cost Bobby dazzler of a dish.

So so good, and the best bit…..

I had loads left. So I made an alternative to a cottage pie. I spooned the left over mixture in to a pie dish.

Made enough mash potato to cover the dish then it was ready to be put in the oven on a Monday night taking all the stress out of doing a dinner that night.

Served it up with some leftover vegetables….banging.

Thank you for reading this if you have.

Also, thanks to Dan Toombs for the inspiration as always.