Aloo Keema (Plus Matar): Pakistani Meat 'n' Potatoes

Hi, folks! The recent breathtakingly cold temperatures have had me in the kitchen making “cold weather” food like soups and casseroles. It’s partly to satisfy our cravings for nice hot meals, but also to make the house smell excellent!

If you like hearty, spicy foods, you’ll love this. It’s an easy, quick, one-dish meal. If you can make Hamburger Helper, if you can follow directions, this isn’t too much harder.

Before I go further, the following is based on a recipe shared by Mrs. Sahar Khan, owner of SK Kitchen Store here in Jefferson City. You’ll find SK Kitchen Store in the shops next to Schnuck’s on Missouri Boulevard. Sahar, her husband, and her son are usually there, ready to help you pick out quality cookware and find what you need in a cavalcade of fun kitchen gadgets. They also sell Pakistani and Indian foods and cooking ingredients.

Sahar leads occasional cooking classes at her store, and if you’re interested in this sort of thing, I encourage you to call her and get on her contact list. Part of the “mystery” of this cuisine is in the technique, and she shows you: When has the masala cooked enough? How hot should the oil be before you add the spices? Also: Her graciousness is very welcoming, and her enthusiasm is contagious!

This recipe calls for only one special ingredient that probably is not in your spice cabinet—black cardamom pods. Don’t worry! You can buy black cardamom at SK Kitchen Store! If you’re not in Jefferson City, look for it at any good international store with a decent selection of Indian spices. (If you really can’t find it, then I suggest using green cardamom pods, but then, use about four, since they’re smaller and not as powerful. Black cardamom is entirely unique; uncooked, it kinda smells like turpentine. But trust me, you want it in this dish!) This is what black cardamom looks like:



I understand that aloo keema is a favorite dish in Pakistan, a “mom” food. Comfort food. “Aloo” means potato, and “keema” means meat, particularly minced or ground meat, as in beef (or possibly veal, mutton, goat, or lamb—think red meat here). So it’s meat ’n’ potatoes! The “matar” I mention in this post’s title is green peas—an optional addition that I like. Aloo keema matar: Potatoes, meat, and peas.

It’s the spices, of course, that set it apart from drab old American chow. The cinnamon is distinctive, but Sahar told me the key ingredient in her recipe is the black cardamom, and I think she’s right. Looking at other recipes for this dish online, few seem to include it. I encourage you to get some and use it. It imparts an unusual (and perfectly wonderful) flavor!

Again: This is adapted from a recipe from Mrs. Sahar Khan. Thank you Mrs. Khan! (Teach me more and more!)



T. = tablespoon
t. = teaspoon
Adjust all chilis to taste.

-------------------------------------------

Aloo Keema (+ Matar)
Potatoes, Ground Beef (+ Peas)

1 T. oil
1 medium onion, chopped

2 cinnamon sticks
2 black cardamom pods (I carefully pierce them once with the point of a knife)
2 bay leaves

1½ lb. ground chuck, lean (“ground beef” is just scary)

3 T. fresh ginger, grated
2 T. garlic, minced or pressed

1 t. crushed red chilis
1 t. ground red chilis
2 t. turmeric
3 t. ground coriander seed
3/4 t. salt (or to taste; check at end and add more if necessary)

2¼ cups water, divided (¼ cup + 2 cups)

2-3 medium potatoes, ½ inch dice (about 2½ cups) (I suggest Yukon Gold)
15-oz. can diced tomatoes (I like fire-roasted)
2 t. tomato paste (I’ve found this is optional)

1 cup frozen green peas, thawed (optional)
½ cup fresh cilantro, chopped
2 green chilis, chopped

Step one: Read through recipe and measure and set out all ingredients beforehand. Don’t be daunted by the number of ingredients. This recipe is easy and goes pretty quickly! The extra line spaces in my ingredients list represent things that can be added all together. Organization is good!

In a large, heavy, wide-mouth cooking pan that has a lid, heat the oil, add the onion, and cook on medium-high heat, stirring, until it starts to brown. Add cinnamon sticks, black cardamom pods, and bay leaves, and fry for about a minute. (It will start to smell really good!) Add the meat, stirring to break up the chunks, and cook until the water mostly evaporates. (If at any point it starts sticking, just sprinkle a little water in the pan to loosen it up.)

Add the ginger and garlic; stir and cook a few minutes; then add the spices: crushed red chilis, ground red chilis, turmeric, ground coriander, and salt. Add a ¼ cup of water, now, too. Cook this for about three or four minutes, to meld the flavors and form the “masala.”

Add the potato, tomatoes, and tomato paste, stir to combine, then add 2 more cups of water. Cover and simmer, stirring occasionally, until the potatoes are just done (don’t overcook potatoes; there’s still about 5-10 minutes of cooking left). (Cooking with the lid on is probably optional, but it makes the potatoes cook faster. But then you have to cook off the extra water; read on.)

When the potatoes are just done, uncover and cook to evaporate the moisture in the pan. You want it to be moist and still rather bubbly, but it shouldn’t be soupy. When it’s no longer watery, stir in the peas, cilantro, and green chilis. Cover again and cook about four minutes, to heat through. Taste and adjust salt.

(If your guests aren’t accustomed to having whole spices in their food, then fish out the cinnamon sticks, black cardamom pods, and bay leaves before serving.) Serve and enjoy!

-------------------------------------------

Suggested accompaniments are raita and naan.

Raita is a lot like a Greek tzatziki sauce. It complements hot, spicy food with its cool creaminess. You can make some very quickly: plain yogurt plus grated cucumber, pressed garlic or sliced green onion, cumin, and a pinch of salt. Good raita recipes abound. . . . Or you could just use plain Greek yogurt.

Naan is a lot like pita bread, a warm, soft, rather puffy flatbread. (It’s not like that dried-out “pocket” stuff some groceries carry.) Alternatively, you can approximate another traditional flatbread, chapati, by using whole wheat tortillas (heated up, of course).

I like cilantro or mint chutney as a relish, too. And I don’t think anyone would throw a fit if you served this with white rice, either.

-------------------------------------------

Cooking with fresh ginger: make it easy on yourself; prepare a bunch of it and freeze it ahead in zip bags. Click here for more tips on "convenient Grated Ginger" (Plus a recipe for cantaloupe-ginger sorbet!)

Carrot-Cardamom Ice Cream

. . . With pistachios!




I’m still on this frozen-dessert kick. You would think I would have plenty, puh-LEN-ty, of opportunities to get frozen treats, being situated here a block away from Zesto and three blocks from Central Dairy, but . . .

Well, maybe I just love my ice cream maker. But it’s more likely that I’m grooving on new flavor combinations they just don’t offer anywhere in this town. The sky’s the limit on ice cream flavors—it’s a shame to focus on the old tried-and-true all the time.

So here’s my most recent concoction; so far, I think it’s my favorite.

It’s based on traditional dessert flavors of India. It seems that Indian desserts revolve around pistachios, almonds, and cashews; raisins, sultanas, or currants; creamy dairy products, halwa, or rice pudding; coconut, mango, strawberry, or other fruits; and rose water, saffron, and/or cardamom. (I have recipes for carrot halwa and carrot pudding, and that’s where I got the idea to add carrots.)

Here’s the formula—notes follow, including an easy technique for grinding your own fresh cardamom.


Carrot-Cardamom Ice Cream

1/2 cup carrots, peeled and grated
7 green cardamom pods
2 cups heavy cream
1 cup whole milk
3/4 cup sugar (or to taste)
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/3 cup unsalted pistachios, coarsely chopped
optional: yellow and red food coloring

Place the grated carrots into a steamer and cook until tender. Mash and place them into the refrigerator to chill thoroughly (mash coarsely, if you want to see little flecks of carrot in the ice cream; puree if you want it smooth). While the carrots are cooking, grind the cardamom (see below) and stir together the cream, milk, sugar, and vanilla.

When the carrots are chilled, add them to the mixture. They should turn it a pleasant pale orange color; if you want more color, add a few drops of yellow and maybe one drop of red coloring. Make sure the mixture is completely chilled before proceeding to the next step.

Pour the mixture into your ice cream maker (I use a Cuisinart 1.5 quart model) and freeze per the appliance’s instructions. At about the last five minutes of freezing, pour in the chopped pistachios so they get incorporated into the mixture. When frozen, transfer to an airtight container and place in freezer to harden completely.





Notes

Shelled, unsalted pistachios are available in ethnic grocery stores. The same goes for whole green cardamom pods. Sure, you can find whole cardamom at supermarkets, but it’s usually overpriced; at an international grocery, you can get greater quantities for less.

And you could use cardamom that’s been ground previously, but it is much less flavorful than fresh—the difference is like night and day. If you use “pre-ground” cardamom, you’ll have to use a lot more—about a heaping teaspoon, by my reckoning. (Did I mention that cardamom in the pod stays fresh for a long time? Take it from zillions of Indian ladies: It’s a much better value to buy it whole in the pod!)





Grinding Cardamom

It’s easy to grind your own cardamom. First, you need a mortar and pestle—you might think this is something that’s only used in “Ye Olde Apothecary Shoppe,” but once you have this device in your kitchen, you’ll be surprised at how useful it is.

You could alternatively use a spice grinder (a coffee grinder dedicated for spice grinding), but unless you’re grinding a large quantity of spices, I find the spice grinder is annoyingly hard to clean. The mortar and pestle, on the other hand, is simple to use and easy to clean. (And it feels good to use—get out those aggressions!)

This technique was passed on by Aman Aulakh, in one of those wonderful “Punjabi Home Cooking” classes she led with her mother, Gurcharan, at the Missouri Botanical Garden. Aman (who grew up in St. Louis) told us a story about one time she was in India, cooking with her relatives, and they had her grind up some fresh cardamom. She dutifully started slitting the pods open with a knife and picking out the seeds with the knife tip.

This is a tedious process, and I could identify with her totally, having done the same thing myself. (Just thinking about all that work puts cramps in my hands!)

But her aunties looked at her like she was nuts: “What are you doing?” they asked her. Then they showed her the “easy” way: Drop the whole pods into the mortar (bowl), then start banging on them with the pestle, straight down. The pods, being dry, split right open, and after a little more pounding the outer shells can easily be fished out of the bowl before you grind the seeds completely. Duhhhh . . .!




When she demonstrated this technique in our class, I almost slapped my forehead; I know I rolled my eyes. But I was comforted to know she had been doing the same thing, and that I wasn’t alone. . . . Ohhh, this is easy. And fun, too!




(Mmmmm, and delicious!)