My mother swears by a kheema recipe she found in a 1980s cookbook – I modified it the other night, and present it to you thus:
Kheema with turkey and spinach
Ingredients
- 300 g ground or diced turkey
- 2 tbs canola oil
- 1 onion, diced
- 4 garlic cloves, crushed
- 1 tbs fresh ginger, diced
- 2 tsp ground cumin (I prefer to buy whole cumin, toast it in a cast iron pan until browned, then crushed in a mortar. It tastes a million times better than what you get in stores)
- 1 tbs coriander seeds, crushed
- 1/2 tsp chili flakes
- 1-1/2 cups hot water
- 1 cup frozen peas
- handful of baby spinach, shredded
- 2 tsp salt
- 1 tbs garam masala
- Juice of half a lemon
Steps toward delicious
- In a cast iron pan or heavy wok over medium-high heat, heat 1 tbs of oil. Drop in the turkey and cook until it it just cooked. Be sure to break up the turkey as it cooks.
- Remove the turkey from the pan, tamp out the moisture. Add the rest of the oil to the same pan, then add the onion. Cook until the onion is soft.
- Add the garlic and ginger. Cook until the onion is browned.
- Add the cumin and coriander and chili flakes. Stir stir. You may decide to add more oil at this point, but it’s up to you. Turkey can be a lean meat.
- Add the turkey, giving it a stir to coat everything with spicy goodness. Then it’s time to add 3/4 cup hot water (I use water just off the boil from the kettle). Bring to a boil, then reduce to medium-high, cover, and cook for 20 minutes.
- Remove cover. Stir it up. At this point, the mix should still be plenty moist.Add the salt, garam masala, lemon juice, and remaining water. Stir, re-cover, cook for another 10 minutes.
- Uncover. Taste. You may decide to add more salt at this point.
- Add the peas and the spinach. Crank the heat up to high, stirring constantly. At this point, you want to accomplish three things: heat up the peas (already cooked in the freezing process), cook the spinach out, and get rid of the rest of the water.
- When that’s all done, serve over rice or quinoa.
Most recipes call for ground lamb or beef, but I prefer poultry myself. It’s even better the next day.