Home Sweet Home: Lamb Qeema (Minced Meat) with Saffron Rice

Lamb Qeema (Minced Meat) with Saffron Rice

Every once in a while, my mom whips out a traditional Middle Eastern dish (or feast I should say). It's usually a dish that takes a little more time (or a couple more hours) than the day to day meals we typically have on the busy weekdays. 

This past Friday, my mom treated us to a delicious Lamb Qeema served with Saffron infused rice. Delicious might be an understatement.

This dish is primarily a curry but without the runny sauce - it's more of a reduced sauce that's stuck to the meat without the liquid (Did that make sense?)

If I were to describe it, I'd say it's pulled lamb with a million and one different spices pressure-cooked for hours in a tomato based curry (hold the sauce). Some of the spices included are cinnamon, cumin, turmeric, preserved lemon, garam masala, chilli, coriander seed ... - it's kind of like all the spices you can think of? There are many different variations of this dish and the one that my mom prepared, she added lentils. But not too many. The star of the dish is the saucy (hold the sauce) meat. Just go with it.

One thing my mom taught me about this particular dish is that when you're cooking the meat in the pot while it's simmering away, you should stir it with your wooden spoon and make one wish while continuing to stir. I'm not exactly sure where this tradition has come from but we all took turns stirring and planting our wishes in there. Let's see what happens? By the way, have you guys ever heard about this or tried it? 

Wishes simmering away...

Any who, I surfed the web and saw that there are so many versions of this dish usually stemming from Middle Eastern, Indian, Mexican and Pakistani flavors. Some like to add potatoes, peas and different minimal veggies. Definitely makes sense since we all share most of the same spices that goes in this dish.

And here's my first (of many) servings of Mama's Lamb Qeema:

From FeedMyTasteBuds Instagram

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