My Recipe for Shami Kebab

Shami Kebab is an Indian recipe made of lamb mince. The story of this dish goes like that there was a Nawab who had lost all his teeth and had difficulties in chewing his food, so he asked his chef to prepare a dish where he does not have to put effort in chewing and hence this dish was invented. The special part of this dish is that the mince and the other ingredients are all grinded to paste and then the kebabs are made which makes them very soft and melty to eat. It is a tedious dish so I like to make it once in a while. This time I made it after more then a year. Last night I had some friends come over for dinner and we were a big group. I prefer to cook all the food at home because I do not like the unhealthy poor quality ingredients that people use outside, like oil and other spices. It was a super hectic day for me. Since I had to prepare 2 main course and 1 starter dish. I did have help of my cook and hubby, but still making all the arrangements for 20 people is a big task.

I had prepared the Kebab paste a day before only, because it is too much of a task and I could not leave it to do for last minute. Let me share the recipe with you all. I have not been good at clicking all the pictures in the making as I had too many things happening at one time, but I tried my best to capture the process of making it.

Here is the final dish. The presentation is not all that great, but I guess the main dish has been captured well :-)

Ingredients
1/2 Kg lamb mince
250 gms Chana dal - (Dal needs to be soaked up before for 6 to 8 hrs)
1 Onion
1 Tomato
Fresh Spices ( Pepper seeds, Cinnamon, cloves, cumin seeds, cardamom)
Chili, Turmeric, Jeera, Garam Masala Powder
Mint Leaves ( need to be taken in good quantity as it gives a good taste to the kebab)
Coriander leaves
Ginger garlic paste 2 spoons
Green Chilies ( This can be added as per the spiciness you need. It is preferred to keep it less spicy)
Salt to taste

Wash the mince and then add up all the ingredients together and pressure cook it. Allow it to cook little more so that it is easy to make a paste once it is cooked.

It's all cooked up

Now it's time to make a fine paste. In the olden times this process was done on the grinding stone and it was quite an effort. By grinding on the stone, there is no water retained and it is done very finely. Also the taste gets much better. But nowadays no one days that. I put it up all in the blender, part by part after cooling it. Do not put the hot mixture in the blender else the blender will damage.

Making a fine paste. Later with hands I checked up the whole content if there were no granules left.

Once the paste is ready, add 2 eggs. This is to get the firmness in frying, else it will fall apart.

Take Ghee or Oil whatever you are using in your kitchen for frying. You need to shallow fry the kebabs.
Make small flat balls
Heat the Ghee

For Frying
take one egg and whisk it up.
dip the ball in the egg, shake off the excess egg and then release it in the pan for frying.

And I have my first lot ready

This time I also prepared some of them in the Air fryer, so there is texture difference for some. I wanted to try it out and see the difference. Both of them were same. The only difference was that Air fryer was taking longer, since I could only make 7 at a time in it, and I had to make a big lot.

Green mint chutney goes best with the kebabs. I did not prepare it but I asked my friend to prepare it and she made it for me.

Good part was that everyone savored the dish and everything got over. I was happy that my efforts were worth it. The dish is simple but there it is a time consuming dish and needs lot of efforts. Hope you all enjoyed the making of Shami Kebab.

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