Carnival of the Recipes #29 - Shephard's Pie
This is a dish I cooked yesterday to take over to my brother and SiL tonight. They are coming home from the hospital with their baby today and it is part of the food package I have put together for them. I've cooked this one quite a lot, and it is quite popular. I cooked it once for some friends of mine when they moved house, and they were much appreciative. The one I cook uses beef mince instead of lamb, so technically it is Cottage Pie, instead of Shephard's pie, but hey, everything else is the same.
Serves 6
Ingredients
1 Tbsp olive oil
2 small onions, chopped
500g (17.7 ounces) lamb mince
1 Tbsp plain flour
1 x 440g (15.5 ounces) can tomatoes, drained, juice reserved
1 beef stock cube, crumbled
2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1/2 cup frozen peas (I use a frozen pea and corn mixture, cause I like the sweetness of the corn, but up to you what you want to go with)
2 medium carrots, finely chopped
4 large potatoes
freshly ground pepper
milk and margarine
Method
1. Preheat oven to moderate 180 deg C (356F). Heat oil in a heavy based pan; add onion. Cook over medium high heat until soft. Add mince. Cook 10 minutes or until well browned and almost all liquid has evaporated. Use a fork to break up any lumps of mince as it cooks.
2. Blend flour with a little reserved tomato juice until smooth. Add sufficient water to remaining tomato juice to make up 1 cup. Blend into the flour mixture with crumbled stock cube.
3. Gradually add liquid to mince mixture, stirring constantly over medium high heat. Add the tomatoes, Worcestershire sauce, peas and carrots. Mix well. Bring to the boil and simmer, covered, for 25 minutes.
4. Cook the potato however you normally do when making mashed potato. I tend to steam ours, but you can also cook them in a pan of boiling water. Whatever takes your fancy. Now the recipe I originally got this from says to blend the potatoes with sour cream and pepper. This is not how I normally make mashed potatoes, and I am not a huge fan of sour cream. So to make the mash, I mash the potatoes with milk and margarine or butter, and cracked pepper to taste. If you do wish to use sour cream, the recipe calls for 1/4 cup.
5. Place the mince mixture in a deep, ovenproof dish. Top with potato, using a fork or spatula to spread it evenly.
Bake for 15 minutes or until the top is golden brown. Serve with a salad or with vegetables of your choice.
** Original recipe before I made my alterations came from Family Circle's book "Popular potato recipes" (1993)
posted by Amanda @ 4:22 pm
8 Pre Haloscan
8 Comments:
Is beef mince the same as ground beef?
Yes, Andy, it is. Ground beef (or hamburger) is what Americans call beef mince. I am an ex-patriate American in Holland who cooks French and Italian, along with Mexican. I wonder what the culinary equivalent for "multi-lingual" is? And a "stock cube" is what we know of as a bouillon cube, except that American ones (about half an inch on each edge) are only enough for about a cup of liquid. You might need to use more than one: the ones here are more than twice as big as American ones.
Hi guys, I've just measured our stock cubes, and they are 1.5cm on each edge(about 3/5 inch, or a bit over a half inch), so if yours are that size, then one is enough.
And yes Andy, like Bruce said, beef mince is the same as ground mince.
One of the interesting side affects of being in this Carnival, is that I'm learning a lot about the differences of what different countries call things.
Hey,
Do you have a recipe for Hunza Pie?
I lived in Oz in the 70's and it was a fav...alas I've lost my handwritten recipe book and can't quite recall the ingredients other than whole wheat crust, spinach and Cheddar cheese.
BJ
I'm batching it this week and, since my wife doesn't care for lamb and inspired by your recipe from last week, I'm making shepherd's pie. Your recipe is very much like the one that me auld mither used.
Now tell me, have you ever made Tamale Pie?
Sorry for the late reply BJ, but I've never heard of Hunza Pie. However, I googled it for you, and found a recipe here
Dave, good luck with the shepherd's pie, let me know what you think.
No, I haven't ever made Tamale Pie, but it looks like a good meal. Gotta recipe I could try?
The shepherd's pie was fabulous. I posted about it.
I'll dredge up a recipe for tamale pie and post it within the next day or two. This is something I know your husband and kids will really like.
Post a Comment
<< Home