Soyabean Keema Kofta Tarkaari

Looking at some of my older posts, I realized that I am not writing difficulty enough recipes so that the blog will look nice... Well.. the problem is I AM LAZY.. so I keep looking for quicker options.. But, sometimes, I do cook nice things for the family... which consists of my husband & two year old son who does not like spicy stuff right now.. :) Some day I dream... some day !!

Here goes the recipe for a soybean keema kofta curry which I made and we loved to eat with roti. I am sure you'll like it too.

• Soak Soyabean (I use the Nutrela brand from the Indian store) nuggets in water and microwave on high for 6 -8 mins. Ensure that the water does not spill off, else the whole microwave cleaning will take a lot of time.
• Squeeze excess water (not need to make it super dry) and put the nuggets in the blender to chop them off into soyabean keema.
• You can also get Nutrela's Soyabean keema as well. Ensure that you wash them super properly else even a little bit of sand kind stuff will hamper you tongue.
• Now its keema cooking time... heat oil and when its hot splutter 1 tea spoon jeera.
• Add chopped onions and fry until browned.
• No tomatoes for keema. When onions are brown, add 1.5 tea spoons garam masala + 2 tea spoon red chilli powder + 1 tea spoon each jeera powder & coriander powder + 1/2 tea spoon aamchur powder. If you don't have amchur, a little bit of lemon juice is fine too. Its only for a sour taste.
• Once masala is fried, add the soyabean keema and fry and fry and fry until water is gone and soyabean starts to look like mutton keema :)
• Add salt and pepper powder only after the keema has been fried up. Salt will release water and thus will keep the keema mixture moist for the kofta.
• Remove the mixture from stove and allow to cool.
• Now, boil two medium potatoes and mash them up real smooth and nice.
• Add 4 table spoons corn starch powder to the same and a little more red chilli powder just for the sake of my spice-loving friends.
• Once keema is cooled down, mix keema + potatoes+corn starch+red chilli powder and make small round balls.
• Now, you can either deep fry them or shallow fry them in a non-stick pan. Either way they taste very good.

For the gravy you need two different masala pastes.

1. With tomatoes + onions

• Slice onions and fry them in hot oil till they are brown. Cool and put in the blender
• Dice 2 medium tomatoes and add to the blender
• Whole garam masala (the regular cinnamon stick + cardamoms + cloves + bay leaf + mace)
• 2 tea spoon ginger-garlic paste
• Blend them all together and keep aside.

2. With poppy seeds + cashew nuts

• Soak 1 table spoon poppy seeds in warm milk for 15-20 mins in the blender
• Add 10-12 whole cashews to that
• 2 spoons water and blend.

Start the gravy cooking...similar process like we always do..

• Heat oil and when steamy hot, add chopped onions + green chillies.
• Fry till onion is brown
• Then add the masala pastes + kasoori methi + coriander powder + whole milk or whipping cream + red chili powder + salt and fry till you see oil seeping from the sides.
• After the masala is nice orange color, add a little water and bring it to a boil.
• Add the koftas and let it sit on the shut down stove for a while.