Yes, I know
shepherd’s pie is usually made with lamb.
But what I had left over was beef so I gave it a go. It turned out great but I do warn you if you
try it that it takes ages to chop the beef up into small pieces by hand. Maybe I need to get a gadget that would do it
for me – but bench space is at a premium.
So I sautéed
onion, carrot, garlic, pumpkin (we use it as a vegetable in my part of the
world), a thumb of ginger (chopped).
Then I cooked
my potatoes (2), sweet potato (1) (or as we call it kumara) plus a large whole
clove of garlic. When they were just
tender I added some florets of cauliflower for no more than 3 minutes.
While the
potatoes etc were cooking I chopped up the leftover beef, being picky about
cutting out fat and sinew. Not an
exciting job – I suggest if you are doing it by hand you watch tv at the same
time.
I added the
meat to the onion mixture, 1 can of crushed tomatoes (I like Italian ones),
salt, pepper, a tablespoon or so of Worcestershire sauce, a splash of red wine
and some peas (frozen). I cheated a bit
by adding a packet cottage pie mix but you could use a dried tomato soup packet
or a bit of cornstarch mixed with cold water.
Then into an
oiled lasagne pan. For the topping you
mash up the potatoes, sweet potato and cauliflower well. Do them how you like them. I added butter, crème fraiche and a little
parmesan. Dollop it over the top of the
meat mixture as evenly as you can without getting too carried away about it.
Sprinkle a
little breadcrumb on top, pepper and salt and a few knobs of butter.
