Keema Patties/ Puff Pastry with Minced Meat filling

As I promised in my last post, here's one very easy recipe using keema(minced meat)....Keema Patties as we use to call it in India or I should say Savoury Puff Pastries with minced meat filling. It can be served as snack or as we like to have it as holiday brunch item also. Usually I cook keema a day before for this & then it's his responsibility to get these patties/puff pastries into final shape & to the table. You can use any left over keema or make fresh batch, only thing important here is, it should be totally dry & at room temperature. In case of any water in the cooked keema cook it on the high flame without any cover & keep stirring it till all the water evaporates & keema is pretty dry. Let it cool completely before using in the recipe. Following recipe will yield 4 patties.

What U need :

• 3/4 cup cooked keema(recipe here) for filling
• 1 ready-to-bake puff pastry sheet(each pack has two) thawed acc. to package direction

Note : Fish out the bay leaves & whole red chillies from the filling.

What U do :

• Open up the pastry sheet. Cut the puff pastry sheet into 4 equal squares.
• Divide keema filling into 4 equal parts. Put each portion of filling into the centre of each square.
• Wet one of your finger and run it over the inside edge of pastry sheet square.
• Fold it into triangles & press gently onto the sides to seal the edges. Repeat with all the squares.
• Put it on a lightly greased baking sheet. Using a fork pierce the triangles at 3-4 places. Bake as per the package directions or at 400 degree F till the patties turn lightly golden brown.
• Serve with your choice of sauce/ ketchup/ chutney and please be careful, meat inside will be really hot & did I told U they are addictive and I really mean it.

Keema Matar(Minced meat and peas) with hidden veggies and Upcoming Review

Today I want to share few things with my readers. First of all wonderful people at CSN contacted me again as a preferred blogger back in the month of sep. for review of any product from their stores (I see new gadget coming into my kitchen for a review). I promised them but  never get to blog about it, and now after almost one & a half month when I came back they still have that offer open from me....so they are wonderful, right? Today I was browsing their collection of  Dining Tables and came across this Dining nook set, how I'm wishing I had a little big apartment so I could have something like that in my dining area. Always love that kind of table, give me the feeling of being kid sitting on that bench.

Another thing to share is an award passed to me by one of my favourite blogger Suma of  Cakes and More. No doubt I love her Cakes/Bakes but also like More section of her cooking too. She is a wonderful cook & a Baker too. Thanks Suma, for sharing the award with me and sorry also as it took so long to post this award.

Also sometime back in the month of Oct. it was Spicebuds first blog anniversary, I myself was so busy with the family back in India that I totally forget about it. Now, moving to today's recipe it's very simple & tasty. Everyone in my house loves it, it's perfect for the times when U don't want to spend lot of time in front of the gas but still want all happy faces on the dinner table asking for another helping. Also a very versatile dish....can be served with rice, roti or naan. When U read the recipe you'll see why I love it so much.....it's quite easy to sneak in some extra veggies(see notes at the end) in this meat dish without losing actual taste of keema. This recipe serves 4 hungry tummies.

What U need :

• 2 pound of minced meat of your choice chicken/turkey/lamb (*see notes)
• 7-8 cloves of garlic, finely minced
• 1 inch piece of ginger, finely chopped
• 3-4 green hot chillies
• 1 med. onion finely chopped
• 2 stalks(branch) of celery, finely chopped
• 3 med. size tomatoes, finely chopped or pureed using blender/food processor
• 1 tblsp. of tomato paste
• 1/2 cup (or more)  peas
• 1 zucchini, finely chopped or very thinly grated.........totally optional
• 2 small carrots very thinly grated(good idea to use food processor here).............totally optional
• handful of fresh cilantro leaves for garnishing
• cooking oil *see notes
• salt
• 3-4 dry red chillies
• 1-2 bay leaves (tej patta)
• 3-4 cloves (laung)
• 1 tsp. cumin (jeera)
• 1/2 tsp. turmeric (haldi)
• 2 tsp. coriander powder (dhania powder)
• 1 tsp. red chili powder
• 1 tsp. garam masala

Notes : Chicken & Turkey keema(minced meat)  comes in many varieties in terms of Fat contents in it. When U look at the packet it says something like 93/7 means 93% fat free & 7% is the fat content. this is what I normally choose as I'm gonna use around 2 tblsp. of oil also for sauteing the garlic, ginger, onions & celery. But there is something like 80/20 also, so U can choose as per your taste & requirement or u can mix  & match.

What U do :

• Heat the oil in a heavy bottom pan, add cumin, dry red chillies, bay leaves & cloves. Once they start to splutter which should not take more then 15-20 sec. or so add garlic, saute it.
• Next goes ginger & a sprinkle of salt, which helps ginger not to stick with pan.
• After few seconds, in goes celery & onions, saute till they are soft & onions are translucent. Now add minced meat to the pan & brown it, also break the big lumps of meat using back side of a big spoon. I prefer to do this step on high gas while stirring it, once the meat is brown(it release some fat too) turn the gas to med. & keep stirring it occasionally making sure it doesn't stick let it cook for 5 minutes or so.
• Time to add all the dry spices except garam masala. stir it thoroughly. Add peas, zucchini & carrots, this will add some moisture also. Let it cook for another 10 minutes or so, stirring occasionally.
• Add green chilies, tom. paste & tomatoes. Cover & cook till done, approximately another 15 minutes or so. Check in between to make sure it's not sticking, if needed add water .
• Also toward the last 5 minutes of cooking add water as per the consistency of the final dish U need. We don't like it too liquid kind just little thick gravy kind to go with rice so I usually add around 1/2 cup of water.

Things to Note : If u r using veggies like carrots they gonna add little sweetness to the final dish so U might want to add extra heat by using an extra chilli or chilli powder.

Garnish with fresh chopped cilantro & serve it the way U want or for some extra ideas wait for the next post.

Meatballs to the rescue......

Meatballs.....sounds very western, but we grew up eating this thing except that in our part of the world they were known as koftas....or to be more precise meat kofta...the other well known cousin of it was non-veg manchurian....so you basically got the idea what I'm talking about. Meatball is ball of ground meat mixed with different spices, sometime uses binding agent like egg, some sort of veggies like onion etc..

Different people in different countries make them in different ways. I too make them in 3-4 different ways but this is the one which is more popular in my household specially with my DD, so I always have these handy. Yes, I usually makes a big batch, let them cool down & then freeze them, so whenever DD wants something special for lunch in the school(though she wants special every single day but that's another story) or after school snack, meatball comes to the rescue.....in rice pulav,pasta salad or just like that.

Ingredient :

• 1 pound of ground chicken/turkey (i use 80% fat free, as little fat gives it nice softness & flavour)
• 1 pound of ground pork (u can use chicken only if u don't eat pork)
• 1 medium onion finely chopped
• 1 large carrot grated/shredded finely
• 2 tbsp. ginger garlic paste
• 4 or more green chillies finely chopped(adjust as per your taste)
• half cup of chopped cilantro( or parsley, whatever u like)
• juice of half lime
• 2&1/2 tsp. of salt (for 2 pound of meat)
• 1 tsp/ paprika
• 2 tsp. cumin(jeera) powder
• 2 tsp. coriander(dhania) powder
• 1 tsp. black pepper
• 1 tsp. turmeric (haldi)
• 1 tsp. garam masala
• little oil

Method :

1) Saute the onions little bit so that they don't have raw onion smell(it helps in keeping the meat mixture soft).

2) Take a big bowl mix everything in the ingredient list including onions. Mix them using your hands. Cover it & let it sit in the fridge for at least 4-5 hours, I usually do this step in the night & keep the mixture overnight in the fridge.

3) Take the mixture out at least half an hour before you plan to make meatballs.

4) There are different ways to cook them, baking is one of them which I prefer to do. Grease 2 baking sheets using 1tblsp. of oil per sheet, pre-heat oven at 400 degree F. Grease your hand little bit, using a spoon scoop the mixture out & roll them into ball using your hands & put them into the baking sheet. Balls are roughly 1 & 1/2 inch in diameter. Once all the balls are done gently shake the tray so that balls kind of roll in it so that they get coating of oil on it(or otherwise u can use cooking spray).

5) Put them in the centre rack of the oven for 20-25 minutes or till they r done & golden brown in color. Once in the middle of baking take the tray out & shake it so that balls move little bit & rotate the tray position while putting it back.

6) To check for doneness cut a meatball into half, it should be no longer pink from inside.

Note : depending upon the size of meatball, kind of mixture & oven temp. baking time varies. If you want you can use meat thermometer also but i don't have one. When they are fresh they can be eaten just like that as finger food or if you plan to freeze them for later use, you can simply put them in the sauce/gravy while it's still cooking & let them defrost in the sauce itself, that way they won't dry up.

You can always use fat-free meat to make it totally healthy......as the fat if any, in this dish, is coming only from the meat.