It’s definitely cooling off, and because of that (and our freezer needed filling) we made the perfect Autumn/Winter comfort food. Today we embarked upon a fairly regular undertaking – we made shepherd’s pie (shepherd’s pie has lamb mince, cottage pie has just beef mince (ground beef). Seems same/same to me, but then I have soy mince so it would do, I suppose.) I say undertaking because it’s a fairly easy dish to cook but requires mindlessly chopping lots of vegetables. It’s a brilliant dish, though, and the base can be used for shepherd’s pie or as the sauce in spaghetti bolognaise. It’s healthy (only a bit of oil and a handful of cheese) and the best bit is that it can get an awful lot of vegetables down fussy little people.
Shepherd’s pie is this quintessential British dish, one I’d never even heard of until I moved here. It’s the kind of dish that, if done well it can be brilliant but if done badly then it’s so stodgy you can use it to wedge wallpaper to the walls. Alastair is a cracking good chef with it, and he has the twins hooked on it. Once every few months or so we whip up a batch of shepherd’s pie, eat some and pop a load of it in the freezer, which is seriously handy for slamming into the oven to re-heat on nights when you can’t face cooking for the family.
I thought I’d share our recipe. We vary it every time depending on what veggies we have in the fridge – it’s great with mushrooms, lentils, peppers, aubergines/eggplants, you name it. That’s what’s good about it, you can use almost any veg up and – if you cut it small enough – you can sneak it past the less discerning palates. The base for shepherd’s pie isn’t fussy, you can add anything in varying quantities – frozen peas and courgettes/zucchini also work nicely in the base.
Ingredients:
2 tbsp vegetable oil
4 onions, peeled, finely chopped
4 garlic cloves, peeled, finely chopped
2 carrots, peeled, finely chopped
1 bunch of celery, finely chopped
1 green pepper, peeled, finely chopped
4 cups mushrooms, finely chopped
6 cans chopped tomatoes
1/2 cup tomato paste/tomato puree
red wine (optional)
1 litre/1¾ pints meat stock
2.5kg/5 lb lamb and/or beef mince (ground lamb and/or beef)
150g/5oz/2 cups frozen peas
2 tbsp mixed dried spices like rosemary, bay leaves, thyme.
2.5kg/5lb floury potatoes, such as Maris Piper or King Edward, peeled, chopped
1-2 tbsp butter or margarine
dash milk
To start, wear yourself out chopping vegetables.
If, like me, your wrist is dodgy then employ others to assist (particularly your spouse, covered in paint and filler from the nursery).
We dug through the fridge and came up with onions, garlic, peppers, carrots, celery, and beets, all of which we chucked into the recipe. Alastair also boiled up some green lentils in some stock for flavor.
These are the other bits that we used (note my tasty veggie mince):
Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4. Then heat the oil in a heavy-based pan over a medium heat. Add the onion, garlic, carrots, celery and peppers and fry for 3-2 minutes, or until just browned.
. Add the lamb/beef mince and sauté it with the vegetables.
Add the chopped tomatoes, tomato paste/puree and stock, stir well and bring the mixture to a simmer. Add spices and half a glass of red wine (the alcohol burns off, it just adds flavor. This part is optional, of course.)
Transfer the vegetable and mince mixture to an ovenproof casserole dish and set aside to cool slightly.
Meanwhile, boil the potatoes in a pan of salted water for 15-20 minutes, or until tender. We’re “leave the skins on the potatoes” kind of people, but that’s just how we roll, you may be anti-skin. Drain well, then mash with a potato masher or ricer. Add the butter/margarine and milk and mash again until smooth and well combined.
Spread the mashed potatoes over the filling mixture in an even layer.
We like to top ours with a handful of cheese – cheddar, parmesan, Emmental all work well.
Transfer the casserole to the oven, put it on a baking sheet just in case it bubbles over, and cook for 40-50 minutes, or until the potatoes are golden-brown and the filling is bubbling.
It is fabulous. Cutting the vegetables is boring, but it’s the kind of dish that you can’t really get wrong. People love it, it’s really healthy, and above all it gets your vegetables in and they taste like heaven. It makes massive quantities – after making one veggie and one meat one, we also have (no lie) six other dishes in the freezer – we get them ready all the way up to putting the cheese on, but we don’t bake them, just let them cool, cover, and whack them into the freezer to use later. If you have too much filling it’s also really nice on top of pasta with a little parmesan on top. Also, seriously – mashed potato crust. That’s all I have to say about that.
-S.
UPDATED – fair point on the mince/ground, Hannah and I’ve edited it! I try to write these recipes as I can. I know that there’s a European/American/Asian divide. I often get things wrong, including words. I promise I’m not making fun or belittling or “dumbing down” anything one way or another. Honest.
The cute (nice bibs). And you remind me, I have some serious freezer cooking to do ASAP.
We love shephards pie and yes it is cooling off, hense the lasagne we had for dinner followed by apple scrumble (yes scrumble cross between a scone and a crumble)!
I do exactly the same thing – rory lves it. Is there anyone on the worl who doesn’t have those ikea high chairs????? Seriuosly – I don’t know a single baby who has anything else!!!
You’re making all of these foods to which I’ve been previously opposed sound delicious.
Interesting – I always knew Shepherd’s Pie from where I grew up in NH, but then it was potatoes, ground beef (*sigh*, mince :)) and corn. Fun to see how you’ve done it, with the added flexibility: I’ll definitely be adding this to my arsenal. Thanks for the great pictures, too! :)
Oooh! The reference just hit me. “You don’t have to take my word for it!” From Reading Rainbow! Wow, that was ages ago.
I know what’s going to be for dinner in my house one night this week. I normally hate leftovers, but, if it has mashed potatoes and cheese? Just pass the fork!
God, I elbow old ladies out of the way for cottage pie! I’m not keen on shepherd’s pie, though, which is a shame as I have a freezer full of things that used to baaaaa.
But… but… putting veg in it is tantamount to heresy! Sorry, veg-adding peeps, but you have strayed from The Path of Righteousness. Veg should be served in a nice medley or ratatouille alongside – yet separate from – the creamy pure deliciousness of minced beef, tasty thick gravy and mashed potatoes. My favourite is cottage pie sandwiches. Invented by my father, they involve getting a couple of decent forkfuls of cottage pie – sans veg, of course – and slathering it over a slice of bread.
Not recommended for Atkins…
This looks terrific, thanks for sharing!
Cottage pie is my “go-to” dish with the kids too. I also use the same mince recipe as the ragoo part of a macaroni bolognese that I do for the kids (we use macaroni – because it’s easier for them to fork up than spaghetti). Thanks for sharing your recipe – mine is similar – but I’m always interested in trying variations.
Nick is a total ham. Nora is like “lady, I’m eating!” I’m on Nora’s page with this one. Let me shovel this into my face for a while, k?
I absolutely despise Shepherd’s pie despite liking absolutely everything that goes into my family’s recipe (and yours too apparently!). I also despise mince and potatoes for the exact same reason: It’s just plain boring. We’ve even spiced up shepherd’s pie with slatherings of curry powder in the mince and it still doesn’t do a damned thing for me.
(Another dish I despise despite absolutely loving everything in it is Toad in the Hole, or the slightly less horrible American version, Pigs in Blankets. Yes, I’m weird.)
On the other hand, your mince looks pretty damn fantastic. I would eat the hell out of that on some spaghetti. I may be stealing the mince recipe. :)
Tasty looking. I might just forgive the fact that it contains peas and carrots…
Moira— we don’t have the Ikea high chairs, because nearly everything we own is secondhand*. But we have a nifty Ikea planet-shaped light in my toddler’s room, and there will be much Ikea furniture bought as we can afford it.
*Lots of cousins.
My scrumble recipe is here http://www.frugaliciousfood.com/2010/09/apple-scrumble-thats-cross-between.html
OK, that looks really good, and might be just the thing for some of these late high school softball nights. Plus, I’m always looking for ways to slide extra veggies in
I will note in passing that there is nothing Ikea in my home. Never has been, probably never will be. It’s just not the way we roll ;-)
Yum, comfort food. To save a little time at clean up, I use the skillet as my ovenproof casserole dish, just plop the potatoes onto the mince mixture rather than dirty another pan. Just gotta make sure the skillet is big enough to fit everything and fully oven proof. Bon Appetit!
Just made your recipe, it made masses of food and it was delicious. Thanks! We gave lots to neighbors and kept lots in the fridge. YUMMY. Our 1.5 and 3 year olds LOVED IT.
I’ll definitely try it out, it will add to my library of recipes with mashed potatoes. Thanks!
Delicious, I made cottage pie yesterday, and it tasted mmmmmhh!
“UPDATED – fair point on the mince/ground, Hannah and I’ve edited it! I try to write these recipes as I can. I know that there’s a European/American/Asian divide. I often get things wrong, including words. I promise I’m not making fun or belittling or “dumbing down” anything one way or another. Honest.”
*reads through to see if there was another Hannah in the comments and then suddenly realizes you’re referring to me*
I hadn’t actually even noticed how you’d written it, I was just imagining my British friends correcting me as I’d written hamburger. Nothing meant by it from my end. :)
Aaaand I will be printing out this recipe as well! Love when you post recipes! :)
So far this week we’ve had cottage pie twice! Leftovers are a beautiful thing :) We topped ours off with a garlic mash. Tasted fab but not so good for socialising after. Our methods are fairly similar too, except we whack in a load of Worcestershire sauce and a dollop of dijon mustard, works wonders!
Great recipe – I love cottage pie! You don’t have to use your skillet as a baking dish. Locally made pottery is not at all expensive and helps your local economy.http://blog.sidestreetstudio.com/wood/10-reasons-why-you-should-buy-local-arts-crafts/
I’ve now got a recipe called “Everyday Stranger’s Shepherd’s Pie” in my recipe book. :) My only question is, about how many portions/oven dishes do you make with these quantities?