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Keema Karela Recipe: Minced Meat Curry With Bitter Gourd
5 from 3 votes

Keema Karela Recipe: Minced Meat Curry With Bitter Gourd

Keema Karela offers deliciously rich minced meat curry with a slightly bitter karela. A curry dish that can be enjoyed with naan bread or roti/ chapati as a dry-curry, or with plain rice as a luscious curry with gravy.

Prep Time
20 mins
Cook Time
40 mins
Total Time
1 hr
Servings: 6
Calories: 382 kcal
Course: Main Course
Cuisine: Pakistani

Ingredients

  • 17.63 ounces ground meat see the note, or minced meat
  • 17.83 - 21.16 ounces bitter gourd aka Karela
  • 5.29 ounces brown onion 2 medium-sized. Sliced
  • 4 garlic minced, cloves
  • ½ inch ginger minced.
  • ½ teaspoon cumin seeds whole
  • ½ teaspoon nigella seeds optional (see the note, aka Kalonji, black seeds, Nigella Sativa
  • 1 teaspoon ground cumin
  • 1 teaspoon Coriander ground
  • ¼ teaspoon turmeric powder
  • 1 teaspoon kashmiri red chilli powder see the note.
  • ½ teaspoon ground black pepper
  • 1 teaspoon salt or according to taste. And extra for rinsing the karela.
  • 2 tomato chopped (see the note, medium
  • ⅓ cup cooking oil
  • ⅓ cup water
  • cilantro chopped (optional, or coriander leaves

Instructions

    Cup of Yum
  1. Cut the karela/ bitter gourd lengthwise but not through to split in two. Open it and scoop the seeds out using a teaspoon. Then slice the karela into 0.5 cm/0.19-inch thickness. 
  2. Place the sliced karela in a mixing bowl and put a teaspoon of salt all over the slices. Set aside for about 10 minutes or so. Then rinse the bitter gourd under running water as you rub it off. You will feel that the outer skin of bitter gourd becomes softened a bit. Squeeze the bitter gourd to rid of the water as much as you can without breaking the karela.
  3. Spread the karela on a large frying pan and start to pan roast it until the bitter gourd is softened with light golden and brown roasting colour all over it. Set aside.
  4. On a cooking pan, heat the oil and fry the sliced onions with the whole cumin seeds and black seeds (Kalonji/ Nigella Sativa).
  5. When the onions become translucent, put the minced meat in and continue frying until the meat brown.
  6. Add in the minced ginger-garlic, ground cumin, ground coriander, turmeric powder, chilli powder, ground black pepper and salt. Cook further until the spices release aroma.
  7. Then add the chopped tomatoes to the meat mixture. Give it a stir and let it cook with the lid on at medium heat for about 10-15 minutes until the meat is tender. 
  8. Lastly, put the roasted karela into the meat and add ⅓ cup of water then mix well. Continue cooking for about 15-20 minutes with the lid on. You can see a little bit of oil separated from the gravy when your keema karela is ready. Garnish with chopped coriander leaves.

Notes

  • You can use any ground meat/ minced meat you like. Though lamb mince or beef mince is probably the most popular option.
  • Recently I like to put a little bit of Kalonji in my Pakistani food cooking. Because these little black seeds offer amazing goodness for our health. But you don’t have to worry about this if you don’t have the seeds. You can simply omit the seeds. 
  • I love Kashmiri red chilli powder. Because it has a unique fragrance and a more vibrant colour. But you can use the regular red chilli powder. And if you want your keema karela to be milder, you can swap the chilli powder with paprika powder.
  • When it comes to tomatoes, you can use fresh tomatoes as my recipe suggests or tinned/ canned tomatoes. If you use the latter one, ⅓ cup/ 80 ml/ 2.82 fl. oz canned/ tinned tomatoes are more than enough for this recipe. 

Nutrition Information

Serving 1g Calories 382kcal (19%) Carbohydrates 10g (3%) Protein 29g (58%) Fat 25g (38%) Saturated Fat 7g (35%) Polyunsaturated Fat 15g (88%) Trans Fat 1g (50%) Cholesterol 91mg (30%) Sodium 499mg (21%) Fiber 3g (12%) Sugar 4g (8%)

Nutrition Facts

Serving: 6 Serving

Amount Per Serving

Calories 382

% Daily Value*

Serving 1g
Calories 382kcal 19%
Carbohydrates 10g 3%
Protein 29g 58%
Fat 25g 38%
Saturated Fat 7g 35%
Polyunsaturated Fat 15g 88%
Trans Fat 1g 50%
Cholesterol 91mg 30%
Sodium 499mg 21%
Fiber 3g 12%
Sugar 4g 8%

* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet.