Shepherd's Pie
Serves: 4
Time: Prep 40 mins Cook: 3 -4 hours
This is in no way a quick meal, and while it is packed full of goodies, it also is not what I would consider a healthy dinner. But everything in moderation, so the occasional delicious, slow cooked comfort meal is well enjoyed in our house. You could do this meal over the course of two days; start the meat one day and then top it another. I find it easier to put the mash top on when the meat filling is cold. Often I will take the lighter approach and do a sweet potato top or a pumpkin top, but tonight is more traditional because my husband loves potatoes and very rarely ever gets them from me, so tonight’s dinner is a bit of a treat for him.
Leftovers
Lunch tomorrow is exactly the same with a few fresh leaves.
Leftover Celery
A really yummy way to use up celery is to spread almond butter over it and eat as a snack. YUM!!!!
What you'll need
500g beef mince
1 brown onion
3 cloves of garlic
3 sprigs of thyme
2 carrots
2 sticks of celery
1 cup of red wine
1 litre of beef stock
1 x 400g tin of whole peeled tomatoes
1 cup of frozen peas
1 kg of desiree potatoes
1/2 cup of cream
50g butter
1/2 bunch of flat leaf parsley
1 bunch of watercress
1/2 cup grated mozzarella
From the pantry
olive oil
salt and pepper
Prep and Cook
Cook Meat
Peel and finely dice the onion, carrot and garlic. Wash and chop the celery into a similar sized dice and roughly chop the thyme, removing any large stalks.
Sauté in a casserole dish or a large pot that has a tight fitting lid on high heat with 1 tablespoon of olive oil till the onion is softened and starting to golden.
Add one cup of red wine and reduce by half.
While you are doing this you can begin frying off your mince; do this in two batches in a hot pan with a little oil. Season with salt and pepper and leave the mince slightly chunky so it’s in larger clumps than normal. Cook the mince until really brown, almost to the point it has a crust. The darker the meat, the better the taste.
Add the first batch of mince to the veggies and repeat with the remaining mince.
Once you’re finished, there will be some mince crusted to the base of the pan, just deglaze this by splashing over some red wine while the pan is still hot, this will pull out all that great taste. Add the liquid to the rest of your mix.
Add to the pot your beef stock and whole peeled tomatoes. Season with salt and pepper and bring up to the boil, then turn down to a gentle simmer and cover with a lid. Stir occasionally for the next 3 hours.
Mash Potatoes
Peel potatoes and cut in half, cover completely with cold water and a couple of good pinches of salt.
Bring up to the boil and continue to cook until soft right through, allow 15-20 minutes.
Drain into a colander and shake off the excess steam.
In the empty potato pot you can now add your cream and butter, with some salt and pepper and bring up to the boil.
Boil till the cream starts to thicken (the bubbles will stop being so frothy and the colour will turn to more of a rich creamy yellow).
Remove from heat and place a sieve over the pot and one by one add a potato to the sieve and push through with a spatula or wooden spoon. Do this for all the potatoes.
Return to the heat and use a spatula to beat the potatoes to a nice smooth consistency.
Keep beating with the spatula and you will notice it will gloss up and start to pull away from the base of your pot as you mix it.
Build the Pie
Preheat oven to 180.
Wash and roughly chop flat leaf parsley and add to the meat mixture along with your peas.
Spread the meat mix across the base of a baking dish. If you have time, I highly recommend allowing the meat to cool first and pop into the fridge so the mix will set.
Once the meat is set you have more control over spreading the warm soft mash over the top. There are multiple ways to do this, you can use a piping bag or spoons to place dollops around the top and then just use your spatula to smooth out.
Place the pie in the oven to bake for 20 minutes.
Remove from the oven and sprinkle over your mozzarella then return to the oven to cook for a further 20 minutes.
Pick watercress tips and wash in a bowl of cold water. Remove from the bowl and shake off excess water.
Enjoy!
Lunch Tomorrow
Shepard’s pie works perfect as a leftover lunch and if you don’t need it for lunch the next day then why not break down into individual portions and freeze for an emergency dinner. If you are going to freeze I would recommend you refrigerate before portioning as it will cut clean.