Keema Paratha is a Punjabi stuffed griddle bread: a layered paratha packed with spiced minced meat and cooked on a hot tawa in fat until both the dough and the filling are done. It sits in the broad family of stuffed parathas, and what marks it out from a tandoor-baked stuffed bread is the cooking surface. Pan-fried in ghee or oil rather than slapped on an oven wall, it comes out crisp-edged, brown-spotted, and shallow-fried rich rather than charred and airy. The angle is a hearty hand bread where a flaky, fat-griddled shell encloses a dry, well-spiced mince, eaten with yogurt, pickle, and butter as a meal in itself.
The build is roll-fill-griddle, and the filling has to be dry enough to survive rolling. A soft wheat dough is rested until pliable. The mince, lamb or goat, is finely worked or pre-cooked with onion, ginger, garlic, green chili, and warm spice and kept tight and dry so it will not tear the dough or steam it open. The meat is enclosed, either stuffed into a dough pocket and sealed or layered between two rolled sheets, then carefully rolled out flat with the seam intact. It cooks on a hot griddle, turned and basted with ghee or oil so the surface crisps, browns in spots, and the layers set while the inside cooks through. Good execution gives a paratha that is crisp at the edges, tender in the middle, with the mince spread evenly to the rim and the bread not torn. Sloppy execution is a filling that bursts the seam, a doughy undercooked center from too low a heat, or a stiff, oil-logged bread fried hard until it cracks.
It shifts by meat, spice, and what it is served with. Lamb and goat are usual; the spicing runs from mild and aromatic to chili-forward, and some cooks fold chopped onion or coriander into the mince. It is classically eaten with thick yogurt or curd, a sharp pickle, and a knob of butter melting on top, which cuts the richness of the shallow-fried bread. The plain and aloo paratha it is built on, and the pan keema of the same region, are distinct dishes and each deserves its own article rather than being crowded in here. What stays constant is the method: a flaky bread griddled in fat around a dry, well-spiced mince so the two finish together.