This is what we had for dinner tonight. I didn't eat the chapatis in the pic (tasted them only as they are new to us). I've been making this recipe for a number of years now and it is the closest to what my fav Indian restaurants serve under this name as I have been able to come up with. The kebabs are pictured here: http://buttoni.wordpress.com/2011/08/06/muthi-kebabs/

The recipe was inspired by a recipe I came across years ago in a cookbook called A Taste of Baltistan, by Sabiha Khokhar. The original recipe had a Balti gravy served with these and I was looking for a kebab more like the muthi kebabs I get at my favorite Indian restaurants. So I tinkered around with it and pulled a few of the sauce ingredients into the meat kebabs themselves and changed the amounts of the spices quite a bit and managed to get my recipe pretty darn close to the taste I’m so familiar with. I like to serve these with various grilled vegetables, usually including onions, but tonight we settled on just tomatoes as I’m really cutting back on my carby beloved onions. Also pictured are griddled chapatis, for my husband, who is not low carbing 100%. We found frozen ones at our new little Indian grocery store in town! He was so excited he just HAD to buy some. I had one bite to see if the frozen ones are any good. I was expecting the worst, but they were actually pretty good. They are much thinner than homemade, more the thickness of a tortilla, but the flavor was excellent and my husband said he’ll definitely be wanting them again. My meat and tomatoes were so good, along with my creamed spinach, I didn’t miss them a bit.

These kebabs can be made with either beef or lamb. And though you can skillet cook them, or broil indoors, grilling them over charcoal will achieve a flavor so similar to those done in a tandoori oven once you’ve done them that way you’ll not want them any other way. I have tried to mold these on skewers before, but I have never had much luck with that. Gravity kicks in and mine drop off the skewer before I can even get the skewer to the grill, so we just do them in little patties instead. This recipe is Atkins Induction friendly.

INGREDIENTS:

24 oz. ground beef or lamb
4 oz. onion, minced fine
2-3 T. cilantro, chopped
1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and chopped fine
½ tsp. ginger root, minced
1 tsp. my Garam Masala spice blend: http://buttoni.wordpress.com/2009/0...an-spice-blend/
¼ tsp. turmeric
¼ tsp. salt
1 small egg, beaten
Dash black pepper and cayenne pepper

DIRECTIONS: I have a food processor, so I throw all the ingredients in and process until all veggies are minced fine and blended well into the smooth meat. Form into 8 equal patties. I actually weigh mine and make them 3 oz. raw mixture for each patty. Prepare charcoal fire and grill over hot coals for about 10 minutes on a side (will vary depending on how hot your fire is and how far the meat is from the coals). I like to serve these kebabs with my Indian Creamed Spinach, assorted grilled veggies or my Summer Roasted Vegetables done with my Shawarma Spice Blend. Mmmmm. Good Eats!

NUTRITIONAL INFO: Makes 8 patties, each contains:

237.6 calories
15.2 g fat
1.46 g carbs, .29 g fiber, 1.17 g net carbs
22.5 g protein
418 mg sodium

23% RDA Vitamin B6, 97% B12, 28% iron, 31% niacin, 25% phosphorous, 16% riboflavin, 335% selenium, 66.8% zinc and 288 mg potassium

Hope you like these. They're simple to make and so exotic in flavor.