Recipe Description
Pasta and curry is not your typical food combo but it works! This is a great example of mixing the East and the West.
Chef Sapna Anand is a renowned chef who puts a modern twist to traditional Indian dishes. This recipe is from her cookbook, New Indian Kitchen, which is available at MPH bookstores. She also conducts cooking classes at At 19 Culinary Studio where she shares her cooking experiences and techniques. She blogs at My Test Kitchen and has a FB page under the same name. Photo courtesy of Sapna Anand.
This recipe is best with
Recipe Ingredient
- 2 tbsp vegetable oil
- 1 bay leaf
- 1 tbsp ginger paste
- 1 large onion (minced)
- 2 medium-sized tomatoes (finely chopped)
- ½tsp turmeric powder
- 1 tbsp chilli powder
- 400 g minced lamb
- 1 tbsp powdered Keema spice mix (ingredients stated below)
- salt to taste
- 6 lasagna sheets½ pack
- ¾cup mozzarella and cheddar cheese mix (grated)
- Keema spice mix:
- 1 tbsp coriander seeds
- 1 tsp cumin seeds
- 1 tbsp fennel seeds
- 1 stick cinnamon (2 inches)
- 1 tsp black pepper
- 15 green cardamom seeds (removed from pods)
- 1 black cardamom seed (removed from pods)
- 8-10 cloves
- Tomato sauce:
- 2 tbsp vegetable oil
- 1 can tomatoes or 6 medium-sized tomatoes (chopped)
- 3 garlic cloves (chopped)
- 1 small onion (finely chopped)
- ½ tsp sugar
- salt to taste
Instructions
- Dry-roast all the ingredients for the keema spice and grind into a find powder. Set aside.
- Heat the vegetable oil in a pan over low heat. Toss in the bay leaf and then the onions, and saute until onions turn soft.
- Add ginger and garlic paste and continue to stir for a few seconds.
- Add tomatoes, along with turmeric, chilli and keema spice mix powder. Continue to cook until tomatoes soften and oil starts to come out from the sides of the pan.
- Add the minced lamb, season with salt and stir to combine all other ingredients for about 7 minutes.
- Add warm water, enough to cover the meat, and continue to cook with the lid on, adding water if necessary and stirring occasionally for about 45 minutes to an hour.
- Stop when the keema thickens. Set aside.
- Heat the oil in a large pan, then stir in chopped garlic followed by chopped onion. Saute until the onions turn soft.
- Add the chopped tomatoes and stir for about a minute.
- Add water until the tomatoes are covered.
- Cook with the lid on for about 10 minutes and then for another 7-8 minutes without the lid until the sauce thickens.
- Season with salt, pepper and sugar.
- Heat a large, wide pot with plenty of water and salt.
- When the water boils, add the lasagna sheets and cook till firm but not hard when bitten.
- Preheat the oven to 180C.
- To assemble the lasagna, spread the tomato sauce in a 9”x9” deep-dish baking tray.
- Lay some lasagna sheets inside.
- Add half of the cooked keema.
- Lay some more lasagna sheets on top, followed by the rest of the tomato sauce.
- Place the last layer of lasagna sheets, and top it off with the remaining keema.
- Sprinkle cheese on top and bake at 175C for about 20 minutes, until you get a golden brown crust.
- You can also turn this dish into a vegetarian dish by replacing minced lambs with cubed eggplants.
Keema:
Tomato sauce:
Preparing the lasagna:
Assembly:
Recipe Notes:
