Mutton Keema

Serves 4, takes around 3 hours

A gutsy, savoury, tender mutton keema.

Between the minced mutton and the fat needed to nicely brown the onions, this dish will develop a layer of oil on the top. This is a key component of the dish, essential to its flavour – keema is often eaten with bread, especially for savouring this delicious oil. However if you’d prefer to remove it, this can easily be done at the end of cooking – do save the fat for roasting vegetables or potatoes, though.

This is one of a handful of Indian-inspired recipes we have created for our mutton collection. In a previous role, our marketing director, Nicola, was lucky enough to be the recipe tester for the Dishoom cookery book, From Bombay With Love. This meant spending six months working with Dishoom’s most experienced chefs, so that the restaurant’s best-loved dishes could be recreated in the home. And so, our own Indian-inspired recipes owe a great deal of thanks to chefs Naved, Rishi and Arun for sharing their expertise and patiently teaching Nicola how to properly brown onions and layer in spices.

1. Heat your oven to 150°C.
2. Place a large, oven-proof saucepan over a medium-high heat to warm. Add the oil. When the oil has warmed, add the onions. Fry until the onions have developed a deep brown colour – this should take at least 15-20 minutes.
3. • COOK’S TIP: This should be done over a higher heat than you might choose when ‘caramelising’ onions, as you want to get a deeper colour and therefore richer flavour. Stand over the pan, stir very frequently and watch as the onions build up their colour – add a splash of water if they’re in danger of burning.
4. Turn the heat down to medium and add the garlic and ginger. Stir-fry for 5 minutes, until fragrant and slightly caramelised – don’t let them burn, add a splash of water if they begin to colour too much.
5. Add the spices and salt and stir-fry for 1 minute, then add the tomato purée and cook for another minute.
6. Add the mutton mince and turn up the heat to high. Cook, stirring very regularly, until the mutton mince has changed colour – it doesn’t want to be completely cooked through, it just needs to have lost its raw appearance.
7. Add the fresh coriander, whole green chillies (stalks and all) and bay leaf and stir well.
8. Add enough water to just cover the meat – some parts may still be slightly exposed, it doesn’t need to be ‘swimming’.
9. Once the keema is gently simmering, place a lid onto the pan and transfer to the oven. Cook for two hours.
10. Let the keema sit for 15 minutes. While the keema is resting, put the dried fenugreek leaves into a small frying pan and place over a low heat. Toast until then crisp up – just slightly – then remove from the pan.
11. If you wish to remove some oil, do so now by skimming it off the top.
12. Crumble in the toasted fenugreek leaves, stir the pot well, adjust the seasoning and enjoy.

2 tbsp neutral oil
1 large brown onion, finely diced
6 fat cloves garlic, peeled and grated on a microplane
4cm piece ginger, peeled and grated on a microplane
1 heaped tsp ground coriander
1 heaped tsp ground cumin
1 tsp kashmiri chilli powder or deggi mirch
½ tsp garam masala
½ tsp salt
2 tbsp tomato purée
750g minced mutton
1 heaped tablespoon chopped fresh coriander
4-6 whole, thin green chillies
1 bay leaf
200g frozen petits pois
1 tsp dried fenugreek leaves (kasoori methi)

To serve
Fluffy bread buns, parathas or flatbreads and/or basmati rice
Fresh coriander leaves
Lime wedges
Finely chopped red onion