I had to look that up. Aloo Keema is just sauteed ground beef. The recipes I found, if you take out the extra spices and veg the time seems the same as Western saute. Are you baking in a tandoor instead of saute?
Do you mise en place? Clean as you go?
Honestly I don’t put veg other than onions and garlic in my lasagna. Bell peppers and mushrooms don’t take long to clean and prep. I included clean-up in my two hour report, but not cooking time. That still means an extra 80 minutes (about) for you.
I’ll reiterate that I’m only trying to help. If lasagna day is a big family experience that’s great.
Usually I make lasagna by myself. My wife and I did it together a couple of cycles ago due to time crunch. We got the lasagna (three trays) ready for the oven and freezer in about an hour. Usually I can chalk up a lot of time to knife skills (I’m knifemeister in our house - my wife takes two to three times as long for prep). For lasagna there isn’t much work other than opening packages and removing the casing from sausage and–in your case–prepping peppers and mushrooms. I’m groping for where the time goes for you. Are your pots and pans big enough, or are you cooking in batches?
I don’t keep track and may be optimistic but here’s what I remember(ish):
Mise en place :10
Prep (onions, garlic, sausage out of casing) :10
Saute :25
Simmer meat sauce :30 (in parallel with next steps - figure :05)
Cook pasta :12 (in parallel with next steps - figure :05)
Mix ricotta :10
Dice mozzarella :05
Assemble (assume double batch in three 9x9s) :20 (includes foil prep for freezer)
Final clean :15 (doesn’t include casserole)
That comes to an 1:50 and I remember closer to 2:00 so I’m wasting some time. Some of that time is a trip to the bathroom, refilling my wine glass, messing with Netflix on the kitchen iPad, chasing the cat out of the kitchen, and keeping up with email that pops up on the iPad. Even with an extra :10 for peppers and mushrooms or even paralleling sauteing spinach for those so inclined it’s not bad.
Quick schmooch with one’s SO does NOT count as time spent. grin
I do want to be clear that cooking is fun, not a chore, so if you don’t care about the time far be it from me to poke. I apologize if I’m over reaching.
No, no, I appreciate your curiosity/concern. I’ll be sure to take pics and document the time. We have it written out, but not timed. At the same time, everything food-related is a big family experience for us, haha.
No … it was a frantic attempt to figure out where all the time was going. I looked up keema and went down a Google rabbit hole considering alternatives to see if there was some variation that was particularly time consuming. A long-term, low-temperature bake in a tandoor was the only thing I came across that would be time consuming.
What am I missing? What possible reference could be of offense? I’m not defensive at all here - if I missed something please tell me so I don’t do it again.
That looks lovely. I’d certainly eat it. No matter what you call it, I like rice bowls.
…and to my way of thinking that’s a good thing. My wife and I enjoy cooking together, and she enjoys the part where I do all the clean up. grin In fairness, more often than not she unloads the dishwasher and puts things away in the morning.
To be clear, in addition to a desire to help that can be perceived as intrusive sigh, I’m easily trapped into science projects and “where did all that extra time go” for you has become a science project. I’m also going to start taking better notes about actual times, purely out of interest, to see how they come out. There is something to be said for “work expands to consume the time available.” Dinner for us tonight is a minor variation on chicken cordon bleu. I’m thinking :17 to ready to go on the grill. We’ll see how I do. Warning - I have deli sliced ham and deli sliced cheese, so I’m not starting with chickens, pigs, and milk. grin
Socially distant Internet hugs (–o–) for taking my interest in the spirit intended.
Google is your friend. A tandoor is not a home cooking device. Nor would it be used to sauté meat sauce any more than someone would make their bolognese in a restaurant pizza oven at home.
Mrs. P made a delicious angus beef burger with everything but the bun It was topped with blue cheese and caramelized onions, on a bed of a arugula, with shishito and mini peppers, and four kinds of radishes purchased from Trader Joes. We also had TJ sweet potato fries and blue corn chips to go with homemade quacamole. It all went great with an excellent syrah.
In a departure from most Fridays, we had Chhole Tikki tonight - street food, potato patties under a pile of chickpeas, topped with sweet and sour tamarind date chutney, green cilantro mint chutney, finely chopped raw onions, and cilantro. Final flourish of Sev - crunchy chickpea “noodles.”
Simultaneously heavy because of the chickpeas and hunger inducing because of the Chaat toppings!
Everyone makes this a little differently, but the chutneys bind it together and make all versions taste somewhat similar.
Beautiful evening meant time to fire up the grill for these chicken thighs with a new-to-me seasoning mix from TJ, COTC with mayo & TJ Everything but the Elote seasoning & a little brocoli for some green on the plate…
An exciting day! of getting the kitchen repainted.
I could use it, but most of the stuff that’s usually in it was scattered about the house.
I decided to overeat anyway.
Chilled tomato soup with sour cream, cilantro and pickled coriander seed.
Glazed shiitakes with bok choy.
Shrimp/Egg salad salad (sic) on balcony lettuce, which (as I’ve said before) is the best lettuce.
I was going to make dinner but BF took over. My pesto from the freezer on spaghetti, Calabresa Brazilian Linguica sausages from the local mexi-mart, and a big salad. He made cute little radish flowers! And a killer dressing - he blended this very soft sheep/goat’s milk cheese in olive oil with vinegar, s&p, grated garlic and minced shallots. So delish, all of it.
Happy Friday! This is my big “coming out” weekend - I’m seeing two sets of friends IN REAL LIFE that I haven’t seen in over 15 months. Homemade pizza party and vermouth tasting tomorrow, and a brewery on Sunday. I’m a bit nervous being so “out there” for the first time in so long, but excited to see all my pals.
It was topped with blue cheese and caramelized onions, on a bed of a arugula, with shishito and mini peppers, and four kinds of radishes purchased from Trader Joes. We also had TJ sweet potato fries and blue corn chips to go with homemade quacamole. It all went great with an excellent syrah.
