Nothing can beat its popularity

Minced meat, a versatile product has for decades been used in various ways to prepare delectable dishes.

A favoured use is for grills, kebabs, burgers, satay, sausages, and in stuffing’s as galantine (a French dish), ballotine, ravioli, derby, roast turkey, pate, terrines, sausages, dumplings, in curries as rara gosht, keema matar and keema kaleji. 

 

Apart from chicken and mutton, mince from beef, lamb and pork and the more exotic wild boar, rabbit, deer, quail, duck, turkey, ostrich, emu, fish and shellfish are also used for popular non-vegetarian dishes and pies.    

 

According to Bakshish Dean, head chef and CEO of Johnny Rockets India,  “If you are cooking European style then mince goes well with pasta, lasagna, bolognaise, ravioli, spatzle.

With cold meat mince, different kinds of sweet and sour chutneys go really well – mango chutney, pear and apple chutney, pineapple chilli and raisin chutney, different mustards too are a great combination with cold meats. 

And if you are cooking oriental style – rice or noodles are a good combination and various sauces like peanut sauce, teriyaki sauce, sweet chilly sauce, soy ginger, chilli coriander. If cooking Indian style then tawa parathas and roomali rotis go really well with mince meats.”   

 

Chef Yograj, Smokey’s BBQ and Grill, said, “Chicken is the easiest meat to cook because mutton, beef and pork take time to cook. We use minced meat in many dishes, like, Six Chilli Chicken Burger, where we use grilled chicken mince patty flavoured with oregano and thyme and served with braised chillies and a tobacco glaze, Smoked Lamb and Butter Onion Burger and Bacon and Lamb Burger. As an appetiser Lamb Kibbeh which is a grilled lamb patty marinated with jalapenos, mint and coriander served along with cream cheese dip is a good option. Pasta, like Smokey’s-style macaroni in meat sauce, all meat baked Lasagne are some of the dishes made from minced meat.”

 

Minced meat is meat that has been passed through a mincing machine to break it down into smaller pieces. 

Other popular dishes are kofta kebab and Kehebh, khbaha bil laban which are made from minced meat, a popular dish at the Benihana restaurant at Nehru Place.

 

Life Caffe in Connaught Place too has some popular dishes made from minced meat.

 

Says chef Neeraj Kumar Malhotra, “We have Bunny Chow, a famous South African dish, where a bread loaf is scooped out and stuffed with cooked spicy minced mutton. 

Then we have Life Caffe Burger, served with options of minced mutton or chicken patty, and traditional burger fillings.

Roast Chicken Lasagne, a layered dish prepared with chicken mince, pasta sheet and cream sauce, topped with cheese and oven baked; a Dimsum Basket, comprising minced chicken and chinese herbs, stuffed in flour dumplings and steamed and Mutton Keema Pao, a tradition Maharashtrian minced meat alternative to Pao Bhaji.”