Chicken Keema Pav is a Mumbai plate of chicken mince keema served with pav. It is an open eating format rather than a closed sandwich: a wet, deeply spiced minced-chicken preparation in a bowl or on a plate, with soft pav rolls alongside for scooping and sopping. The whole point is the interplay between the rich, masala-heavy keema and the plain, buttery, griddled bread that carries it, the bread tempering the spice and soaking up the gravy that pools at the edges.
The two parts are made separately and plated together. The keema is built in a pan: onions cooked down with ginger, garlic, and green chili, then tomato, a masala of chili, turmeric, and garam masala, and minced chicken added and cooked until it browns and the spices coat every grain of meat, finished loose with a little water or kept semi-dry depending on the cook. Green peas, coriander, and a squeeze of lime often go in near the end. The pav, a soft square milk roll, is slit and griddled cut-side down with butter so the faces take a light crisp. The keema is served hot, the pav warm beside it, sometimes with raw onion and lime on the side. Good execution gives a keema where the mince is browned and separate rather than steamed into a gray clump, the spice balanced and the fat carrying flavor without slicking the plate, and pav that is warm with a faintly crisp griddled face. Sloppy versions turn out a pale, watery, underbrowned mince that tastes of raw masala, oversalt it to compensate, or serve cold untoasted pav that goes dense and gummy against the gravy.
The format flexes by how wet the keema is and how it is finished. Some kitchens keep it semi-dry and almost like a bhurji-style mince for stuffing into the pav; others keep it gravy-loose so the bread soaks. A pav-bhaji-style butter-and-masala finish pushes it richer and redder; a pepper-heavy treatment pushes it sharper. Some versions fold a fried or scrambled egg into the keema, or top it with extra butter and chopped onion. The pav itself, and the wider pav street-snack family it belongs to, is a distinct subject that deserves its own article rather than being crowded in here. What stays fixed is the source's pairing: spiced chicken mince keema eaten with pav.