Instant Pot Kashmiri Keema Aloo Matar / Instant Pot Minced Turkey Potato and Peas Curry
I love Kashmiri food. Most Kashmiri food is cooked with ground fennel, and ground ginger. I personally love the taste of ground fennel in food. It is very flavorful and aromatic. Fennel has several health benefits: It helps in digestion, reduces bloating, and heartburn. This minced turkey recipe is my attempt to create a fusion recipe. I have combined Kashmiri spices and also added onions and tomatoes. Traditional Kashmiri recipes don’t use onions and tomatoes. However, for this particular recipe the onions and tomatoes add texture and flavor. I will post the authentic Kashmiri turkey recipe without onions and tomatoes soon as well.Keema aloo mattar is very easy to make in the instant pot and is very flavorful. It can be eaten with roti, naan (Indian flatbread), or rice.
Ingredients
- 4 tbsp oil of choice
- 2 whole black cardamom pods
(kali elachi)
- 1 dried bay leaf
(tej patta)
- 2 whole cloves
(laung)
- 1 tsp cumin seeds
(jeera)
- 1/2 onion finely chopped (white, yellow, or red) (1 cup chopped)
- 2 and 1/4 tsp red chili powder
(ground cayenne pepper) - 1/2 cup water
- 3 tsp ground fennel
(saunf powder)
- 1.5 tsp ground ginger
(sonth powder)
- 1 and 3/4 tsp salt (add more later if you need more salt)
- 1/2 tsp ground turmeric
(haldi powder)
- 3/4 tsp ground cumin
(jeera powder)
- 2 medium tomatoes pureed (1 to 1.5 cups pureed tomatoes depending on the size)
- 1 pound ground turkey
- 1 medium yukon gold potato peeled and chopped into 2 inch pieces (1 and 1/4 cups chopped)
- 1/2 cup green peas (frozen or fresh)
- 2 tbsp dried fenugreek leaves
(kasoori methi)
Instructions
Prep
- Wash and chop the onions, and puree the tomatoes. Wash, peel and chop the potatoes.
Cook
- Select sauté on the instant pot and adjust to normal.
- Add oil to the pot.
- When the oil is hot, add cardamoms, bay leaf, and cloves.
- Then add cumin seeds.
- When the cumin seeds splutter add the onions. Sauté until the onions turn golden. Keep stirring in order to prevent them from burning.
- Then add red chili powder, water, and stir. Adding water is key to prevent the red chili powder from burning. Let it sauté for about 1 minute.
- Add ground fennel, ground ginger, salt, ground turmeric, ground cumin, and stir.
- Add pureed tomatoes and stir. Let them sauté for 3 to 4 minutes. This step enables the tomatoes to cook and get the raw tomato odor out.
- Add ground turkey and crush it with the back of a spoon. Keep doing it in order to prevent lumps from forming. Stir continually.
- Then add the potatoes, peas, and stir. Make sure nothing is stuck to the bottom of the pot and scrape the bottom of the pot well.
- Press cancel.
- Secure the lid on the pot.
- Select manual and cook at high pressure for 8 minutes.
- Once cooking is complete, use a quick pressure release to depressurize.
- Open the lid and add dried fenugreek leaves.
- There will be some gravy. If you want the keema/turkey to be completely dry then select sauté and let the gravy evaporate. It should take about 2 minutes. Keep stirring so that the turkey doesn’t stick to the bottom of the pot. I personally like some gravy in it since we eat it with rice.
- Transfer in a serving bowl immediately. Discard the bay leaf.
Serve
- Serve hot with steamed rice, naan (Indian flatbread) or roti.
Notes
- On a scale of 1 to 5, I would place this at a level 3.5 in terms of spice levels. You can modify the red chili powder as per you heat tolerance.
- This recipe has been tried on the 6-quart instant pot. The proportions may vary depending on the size of the instant pot you choose to use.
- You can use any ground turkey meat. I typically use 85 percent lean turkey meat (Jennie-O brand).
- Ground cayenne pepper and red chili powder can be used interchangeably as both of them make the dish spicy. So if you don’t have red chili powder you can use cayenne pepper instead.