Beef Kofta Curry

This meal was a family affair. My only contributions was browning off the beef kofta’s in the pan before adding the curry paste and then adding the garnished leaves at the end. This was loveingly prepared by both my daughters under their fathers guidance. I had to laugh when my little one got squeamish about scrunching the lentils and the mince together, there is no escaping the messy jobs in this house but ooh is nice when someone else cooks for me. I was a very lucky woman.

Ingredients

• 1 x 250g Pack of ready-to-eat Puy lentils
• 1 heaped Tsp garam masala
• 400g Lean beef mince
• Olive oil
• 3 Ripe tomatoes
• 1 thumb size piece of ginger
• 2 Spring onions
• 1 fresh red chilli
• 1 bunch of fresh coriander
• 1Tsp turmeric
• 1 Tsp runny honey
• 2 Tsp Patak’s rogan josh curry paste
• 200g light coconut milk
• 4 Tbsp fat-free natural yoghurt
• 1 Lemon
• 1 Mug basmati rice
• 5 Cardamom pods (optional)
• 200g green or yellow beans (optional)
• 200g Frozen peas (optional)
• Poppadoms

Method

1. Place the lentils in a bowl with the salt, pepper, the garam masala and the mince. Then scrunch it together with clean hands.
2. With wet hands squeeze the mixture into 12 small sausage shaped meatballs. Put them in a frying pan with 1 tablespoon of oil and fry until golden brown.
3. Put 1 mug of rice, 2 mugs of boiling water into a pan. Jamie Oliver’s recipe includes cardamom pods also, you would add them now if you chose to include them along with beans. Put the lid on the pan.
4. Squash the tomatoes into the liquidizer, add the peeled ginger, trimmed spring onions, half the chilli, the coriander stalks, turmeric, honey, curry paste and coconut milk, then blitz until combined. Pour into the kofta pan, bring to the boil then simmer and season to taste.
5. Take the lid off the rice, add the peas, mix it all up and give it just a few more minutes.
6. Finely slice the remaining chilli and coriander leaves and scatter them over the curry, dollop with yoghurt, then serve with lemon wedges, poppadoms and the rice.