A Middle Eastern Flair

 

Because of the second round of storms, my office let us all go at 2:30 p.m. so that everyone would be out of harms way when the storms blew in.  With that extra time on my hands, I decided to try my hand at a simple Middle Eastern dish.

On tonight's menu is Kima (also known as curried beef), paired with roasted squash and broccoli. A glass of sangria rounded out the meal. The fruity wine was the perfect compliment to this spicy Pakistani dish.

You can find the basic recipe here.

I have become a fan lately of roasted vegetables. I can prepare them and pop them into the oven and they cook while I prepare the main course. I coat them with a little olive oil, garlic, oregano and red pepper and then cook them about 25 minutes at 350.

The kima, took a little prep before I was able to start cooking it. I measured out all the spices into a prep bowl, reconstituted the minced onions in another, and opened the can of diced tomatoes (a chore I prefer to leave to the professionals). 

My recipe called for much more curry, which I cut by half, and was very glad that I did. I can handle spicy food pretty well, but I can not imagine how volcanic this dish would have been had I followed the recipe to the letter! My mouth is still on fire nearly an hour later.

I used ground turkey, instead of beef, because there is less shrink, and also used black-eyed peas instead of English peas, simply because I can't stand English peas. I don't think it made much difference in the taste.  My recipe called for brown rice, but all I had was instant white rice. Once mixed in, I don't think you could tell much difference because the texture is pretty much the same.

As it cooked, it smelled heavenly!

But one pound of ground turkey went a very long way, so I will be carrying this for lunch and sharing it with some of my friends.

The only downside is that the curry stained everything it touched. My pan, prep bowl, and plate are currently soaking in the sink!

It was very tasty, and super easy to make. Next time, I bet it can do it from memory.

~En-JOY!