When Kheema met Rajma

I don't cook Indian food often enough. I have always felt that I could never cook Indian food as well as my mother or my grandmothers, so I just don't bother. But it is hard to be away from home and really want good Indian food. Indian restaurants are never good enough: there is always too much butter, too much oil, and not enough love (so cheesy I know :) ). The other day I really wanted Rajma, which is essentially Indian vegetarian chili, and some Kheema. Sooooooo...if you put it together, you essentially an Indian spiced chili. Now, the pictures and the recipe will not do this dish justice. The smell is what excited me so much that I stayed up late at night to finish making it. If I were to do it again, the one thing I would do would be to cook the beans longer so they were softer.

Here is kind of what I did. Unfortunately, since I never use measuring spoons to do anything, I don't have exact measurements. I guarantee that I added quite a bit of each spice and I truly which smell-o-vision or a scratch and sniff sticker could be used to describe this. Here is how the marriage of my two favorite dishes went....

First, the Rajma....

1/2 bag of dried kidney beans. Soaked over night. Then put them in 5 cups of boiling water, add salt, and boil for about 30-45 minutes.

Then, get the Kheema ready....

Usually Kheema is made with ground lamb. I grew up with ground chicken kheema. I, however, only had ground beef on hand. So here is kind of what I used...

1 lb ground beef
4 cloves of garlic, minced
1 inche of ginger, grated
1 tsp oil
1 onion, diced
1 Tbsp Garam Masala (I was lucky to have mama moho's fresh garam masala)
1 Tbsp Coriander
1 tsp Chili Powder
1 Tbsp Toasted Ground Cumin
2 Bay Leaves
12-oz can of diced tomatoes

In a skillet, add some oil and heat. Then sautee onion, garlic, and ginger in oil. Add ground beef and then play with spices. I just kept added spices until it tasted good to me (I taste as soon as the ground beef is cooked). Then add the diced tomatoes and let simmer.

Then, when the kidney beans are cooked. On some page I read the 5 bean rule. Taste 5 beans, if they are all cooked, then you're good to go. Once I added it to the beans, I let it all cook together for 20 minutes. And VIOLA...with some quinoa, this ish was fantastic :)