Keema Matar Minced Lamb & Pea Curry

Lamb Keema Matar is classic Pakistani homestyle curry, it is incredibly simple to cook and springs to life with a thousand flavours!

Lamb Keema Curry!

This recipe is really rather exciting for me! It is one of my very favourite dishes and one I rarely get an opportunity to cook!

Lamb is expensive here and difficult to find, but if I am listing my favourite things then it will be Lamb, Curry, Peas & Chilli. Oh and beer!

I tend to buy a large piece of lamb for either my lamb madras or lamb rogan josh recipes. Then I mince down the trimmings and us it to make this recipe!

My version of lamb keema matar is mainly Punjabi and Pakistani in influence. It features spice heat from both fresh peppers and Kashmiri chilli powder.

It is also heady with Fenugreek. A herb/spice that I personally find synonymous with food from the North of the Indian subcontinent.

So yeah it is safe to say that this dish is not just a few of my favourite things.

It is without question ALL of my favourite things!

Can I Use Beef?

Keema just means minced meat so yes, of course! Although I would personally change the spicing a little.

I have no idea why people accept that you can swap the meat in a curry and not bother to change the spicing.

I write about this a little in my pork vindaloo and beef vindaloo recipes.

If I am making this keema with beef mince I scale back the coriander and cumin in the recipe by half.

Then I increase the fenugreek by 50%.

This is a similar spicing to the one that I use in my simple beef curry with peas recipe.

If I am using beef I use ghee rather than oil to approximate the rich mouthfeel that you get from lamb.

I personally think it gives a much better balance.

If you are as “picky” as me then the cut of meat matters, for lamb I use shoulder. If I were cooking this with beef I would buy some neck and mince that.

But whatever keema or mince you can find in the shops would work equally well, just avoid the lean stuff. Minced meat needs fat to avoid it having the texture of grated polystyrene!

Serving Suggestions.

Look no further than the good old Mr naan bread to serve as your bread for this recipe, although chapatis work really well too!

I often round out this dish by serving a kachumber salad on the side.

That whole minty, onion combination works perfectly with the rich lamb keema and explosions of sweet garden peas.

As a Brit I do have an affinity for serving this with Bombay potatoes. It is the who minced meat and potato thing that reminds me of frugal dinners growing up!

If you want to serve it with rice then try a jeera rice, a Pakistani rice flavoured with cumin, cinnamon and sometimes bay.