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Shami Kebab

I am not a hard-core meat eater, but there is just something about shami kebabs that I cannot resist!!! They are just so darn good!

Yasir’s badi mami (who taught me how to make Aloo Gobi) gave me this recipe, we were visiting the Buchh’s on the weekend, and I ate a zillion kebabs.

I am going to make it myself, today as soon as I finish writing. My fingers are crossed tightly, I hope they come out atleast edible!

So let me not waste more time, and lay out the recipe for all of you.

Oops I almost forgot to add, if you are not a meat-eater, then you can make these kebabs with chicken too! Isnt that cool. Actually thats what I am going to do, make them with chicken tonite. Also you can mix your choice of meat with chicken. Its a very flexible recipe.

Ingredients:

2 lbs meat/chicken/meat and chicken, meat can be goat, lamb, beef (i think Shami kebabs are mostly made with Goat meat, its called mutton in India),
3/4 cup chana daal (split chick peas, a kindof lentil - yellow in color),
salt as per taste,
garlic cloves 3-4 pcs (grated) (’lasan’)
Green cardomom (5-6 pcs, ground) (’choti elaichi’)
Brown (big) cardomom (3 big ground) (’badi elaichi’)
cinnamon stick 2-4 small pcs, (’daalchini’)
couple pinches turmeric (’haldi’)
cumin powder (’jeera’) 1/2 tsp
fresh cilantro, few handfuls, finely chopped,
a couple green hot peppers, finely chopped,
1 onion finely chopped,
2 eggs
water for cooking,
oil for frying

Method: 

In a pressure cooker, or any deep cooking pot, put the chicken/meat, lentils (chana daal), salt, garlic, cardomom powder, cinnamon sticks, turmeric, cumin powder and water (not too much water). We have to cook all this, till the chicken/meat falls off the bone. When the water is almost gone, then pull out the bones, with your hands. In a food processor, blend this, until you get kind of minced meat, not completely like a paste.

Remove this in a mixing bowl, add egg, onion, cilantro, and pepper. Mix and you will get a sticky dough. Now make little flat patties out of this, and shallow fry them in oil for sometime, it make take sometime to be fully cooked.

Thats it, done! Sounds easy, hmm, I will tell you later if it really is as easy as it sounds.

January 17th, 2007