Keydeck's shepherd's pie type thing recipe

Had a very tasty meal tonight. Tis not fancy cuisine by any stretch of the imagination but damn it tasted good. Am looking forward to tomorrows leftovers already.

Ingredients:
500g minced beef
4 medium sized potatoes
2 carrots
1 onion
4 mushrooms
2 cloves of garlic
French mustard
Milk
Beef stock

The quantities above are very much open to interpretation. You can use whatever you like in this really. Actually the ingredients are pretty much up for grabs too. Use minced pork or lamb instead if you prefer. That's part of the simple beauty of it.

Method:
1. Boil the potatoes with a bit of salt until tender. Mash and mix with a tablespoon or so of mustard & a dash of milk. Incidentally, I don't have a potato masher at the moment but the bottom of an empty 1.5L Diet Coke bottle did the trick just nicely.



2. Cook the mince (pan or pot) until just brown. Don't use any oil.
3. Add the chopped carrots, onion & shrooms, cook for a few minutes
4. Mix the beef stock with about 150ml of water and add to the mix.


Note: Nuclear powered hob ring, use at own risk

5. Bring to the boil and add the garlic (squished) and season with salt, pepper & sage, or whatever you fancy really.
6. Cook for a few more minutes and then pour the mix into an ovenproof dish.



7. Cover with mashed potatoes
8. Cook in an oven pre-heated to 200 celcius for about 20 minutes until potatoes are goldenish.
9. Serve with green beans. I didn't because I forgot, but I reckon they'd go great with it.



Simple, filling and tasted great!

A drop of the old HP and a nice backdrop doesn't hurt either.

Sounds nice. I just might try that tonight!

Carrots?

BLASPHEMY!

woof.

I always whack some Worcester Sauce in with the mince when I add the stock. Lecker, it is. It's just like pre-adding the HP, really.

I don't add carrots, either, actually. Just mince and shrooms.

My Mom and sister also cook it with carrots. Blech. Much nicer without.

Topsy, yeah, I forgot to mention the Worcester. That went in at the same time as the garlic. Mea culpa

The reason for the carrots was because it was Wednesday.

As a great hero of mine would have probably said, it's your dish, there is no wrong, put in whatever you want. I'm just going to add a couple of happy little carrots here.

Where's the accompanying beer? All that is lacking to a perfect meal.

nice recipe, Keydeck. One of my favourite traditional dishes, actually. Now time to split hairs! Using minced beef makes the dish a "Cottage Pie", minced lamb is used for "Shepherds Pie". No idea what you'd call it with minced pork, though. Probably "Pigsty Pie".

Are you an enemy spy?

No. I'm a shepherd.

A-ha! A shepherd spy.

Too early huh?

Not into cottaging mate. That's why I called it a "shepherds pie type thing". It's not supposed to be the real thing, it's just based on one.

My ex-wife used to make shepherds pie with Apricots in the bottom, it sounds horrible but actually tastes delicious.

A wonderful recipe keydeck. I love it myself and prepare it when I have to.
Mixing an egg with the mash will help make the top turn a nice brown.

Afters:
Vanilla ice cream and fresh fruit. 2 helpings. After afters: 2 crunchies and a Dylan Moran DVD.

I find that this type of meal is very satisfying since it contains no callyries!


BTW I love the translation of the German word "After"

Coindentally my supreme commander is returning to the UK on Friday for a week and she kindly made two beautiful supersized shepherds pies, several yorkshire puddings (batters) and about a hundred weight of bubble and squeak to keep me and the lads going in her absence. The tough part was to leave it standing on the worktop prior to freezing. Geeez I love that girl!

Spot on rizzo. Any lady who believes in "Shepherds Pie", "Bubble & Squeak", "Cottage Pie" and "Lasangane" (as I once read on a Scouse restaurant signboard), has to be loved, admired, respected, plied with gifts, pampered, placed on a platinum pedestal, allowed to walk your dog, showered with valuable trinkets, ...
Any lady who believes in "Colcannon" as well replaces your mother!

OOOHHHHH, there could be some fallout on this one!

I grew up on this dish, but with grated Chedder on top.

(oh, and peas instead of green beans).

Yum.

Bon, ben, J'sais pas mec.

When I make a cottage pie (beef) I generally whack in a bruniose of finely chopped carrots, onions, celery and leek. The sweetness of the veg kinda arrests the beef flavour a bit, and gives a more rounded finish to the overall taste.
Another nice tip is to use a potato ricer (or push all the mash through a sieve) to get a really good puree. Then whip it with some cream to get a good working texture, and then you can either pipe it onto the meat, or simply whack it all on with a spoon, smooth it down, and scallop the top with a palette knife a la Gary Rhodes. Brush with melted butter for a crisper finish, and it looks the dogs bollocks when it comes from the oven.

A REALLY REALLY REALLY important tip is this:

Let the meat mixture go cold, or at least cool alot, before adding the mash. It make sit 100 times easier to get a decent finsih, and a good seal. Nobody likes the fillung bursting out of the edges and turning the mash all rubbish colours.

WARNING: garibaldi is a liar. Only one of the above applies, especially when it's snowing.

Me, I throw some oregano and a bit of tomato puree in with the meat. Lots of black pepper too.

Thanks LOADS LOADS LOADS don_riina BTW for the REALLY REALLY REALLY important tip!

Yeah, alright sunshine, I rather overused capital letters. I'm just getting used to the font options on posts, and when I learn colours, I'm taking up touch rubgy.

Ask crusoe what she understands by "men & colours" esp. "men who are "good with colours"

I will certainly try the recipe, fell in love with Shepard's Pie while (whilst) in Cambridge.

Now for the language lesson, what is bubble and squeak, Colcannon, HP sauce and what is the most popular brand of Worchester sauce? (Lea and Perrins in the states)

Brilliant recipe. Works well with chicken or turkey strips as well.

Check out:

Decent Food

Colcannon
Bubble & Squeak

HP Sauce from:
Great Sauce

Colcannon and bubble & squeak are quite similar (no offense to the oirish...).
Colcannon - mash with shredded cabbage, sometimes with added onion.
Bubble & Squeak - as above, but you can also have other veg like peas, leek in it AFAIK.
Basically, both are ways to use up leftover veg, e.g. from a raost dinner.

HP Sauce

HP sauce can be bought in lots of supermarkets here, you don't need to go to a specialist shop. However IMO Daddies Sauce is far superior and I've never seen that here. Not a big problem though as a large bottle from England lasts yonks!

Is that like "Hey baby, come on over to my place and try some of Daddies sauce. "

Similar but a bit spicier!

in our house Bubble and Squeak was monday night's dinner after the roast the day before. no fixed ingredients per se but worked best if cabbage and spuds were dabei. all the left over veggies were lobbed in the pan with bacon and fried whilst being mashed with a spud-masher.
yum had this for dinner on Monday this week cuz we had a top Chicken Roast Sunday lunch and there was shedloads left over. put the stuffing in too it was ace, served up with HP sauce, slurps!

BTW
The trick with Bubble & Squeak is that you can add in almost anything that's hanging around. I've put Walkers crisps into it and on one memorable occasion during a very herbally oriented evening 2 Mars bars. Hilariously known that evening as Hubble & Squeak. Space... geddit?
Oh, and don't stint on the butter. Only use real butter because the basic meal is soooooo low in calories that you have to give it a bit of a kneeup.

One can never have too much butter in mash... *drools*

I love making Shepherds Pie (its always been called that in my house and we use beef, I know its wrong but it sounds better than cottage pie). Worcester is a MUST and you should try adding some HP to the gravy to make it richer and a teeny bit sweeter. I've adapted mine quite a bit over the years, now I would recommend adding leeks - both to the sauce AND to the top of the mash. Cut em' up spread them over the top of the mash, grate some cheese over it all and whack it under the grill...tastes fantastic and looks amazing.

My mum always uses parsnips with the shepherd's pie meat sauce along with carrots and adds a teaspoon of curry powder too (she doesn't use garlic or HP sauce). Makes for a great heavy, warming meal for a winter's evening.

And HP sauce does last forever - I just finished a bottle that was best before December 1999. The ingredients are all natural preservatives (vinegar, salt, molasses) and things that don't go off (like dried fruit) so no worries there.

I would like to know the amount of calories you get in 100g of shepherds pie.
Does anybody have a calorie counter book ...I tried online but most of the sites wants you to sign-up for a free 3 week trial...don't need that.

This search helps.

For example, in this pie there are 387 calories per serving whereas this one has 322 per serving.

Thanks a million...I did my search the other way around. Looked for calorie counters, instead of just looking for shepherds pie and take it from there. You're a *

Mrs Tom 34

Mushrooms in Shepherds Pie?! My mum used to make it with just onions, with carrots etc., it´s called Cottage Pie. Worcester Sauce is of course essential - the one and only Lea & Perrins.

w

Ah well if that's the way your mum used to make it then it must be the correct way. Although BadDoggie would probably turn in his grave, if he were dead, at the mention of carrots.

TIT...

Shepheards pie is made with Minced lamb..

Cottaging pie is made with Mincing puffs!

How uncouth

What no pees , scandalous

Omigod! Heaven forbid something go in the shephard's pie that your mummy didn't put in it! We all know there is only one recipe for shephard's pie and any deviation from said recipe will result in certain death.

Help! I need to make a shepherd's pie right now, and I can't reach my Mum on the phone.

Here's what I think I'm going to go with:
- Onion and garlic.
- Mince (beef and pork).
- Beef stock.
- Bit of red wine.
- salt and pepper.
- Drop of tobasco.
(Don't have any worcester or HP sauce)

I don't want the meat too greasy, so will saute the onions and garlic in a little olive-oil, then drain them, I guess?

(On top, of course, mash and grated parmesan)

Any further recommendations? Our family recipe is a carrot/tomato/etc.-free one.

You'll have to cook it down slowly or use some kind of thickener to get the gravy right. Otherwise it is going to be too thin.
Got any vegimite/marmite? That would solve the worcester sauce problem.
Mine (actually my mum's) uses Bisto gravy granules to get that consistency. No tomato. Carrots would have been good.
Drain the onions once glassy and also try getting some of the fat off the mince.

And that's a cottage pie. Only Shepherd's when has lamb mince (yeah yeah I am picky).

Yeah, that sounds better. I'll reduce the sauce for a while and then use some corn-flour to thicken it a bit more.

I'm going to make a vegetarian shepherd pie using this recipe.

http://caseyaffleck.com/recipe77.html

I'm also going to try Keydeck's recipe with a meat substitute.

If you don't want it greasy brown the mince first slowly then drain off as much of the fat as you can (you can leave it in a cup or bowl or whatever maybe in the fridge if it's very warm over there at the moment - once it cools down it'll solidify which makes it easier to put in the bin). Take the mince out of the pan and use what little fat is left to saute the onions. No need to add any extra oil add a bit of the mince drippings if you need some.

If you're trying to do this dish quickly then one sneaky shortcut is to make the mash and put it straight into an ovenproof dish and whack it under the grill for ten minutes. This'll get the top nice and crispy and golden but can be cooking at the same time as the meat is cooking in a saucepan. This only works if you'll be serving it up on plates - just a dollop of meat and a 'slice' of potato place on top of it. It's not quite as good as the real thing but if you're stuck for time it's a help.

I always use worchestershire sauce and some chef brown sauce (am off to search for thread on chef v. HP now, I'm sure there must be at least one!) and use bisto if it needs thickening up.

The flavour's in the fat and oil. Cook the meat down as keydeck said (or in the case of the veggie substitute, DON'T throw away the oil from cooking the onions) until the very end. Once the mix is ready you can skim some/most of the fat off the top. Fat and oil hold flavour. Keydeck said to brown the meat without oil -- this keeps the fillling from getting too fatty and retains the flavour.

woof.

Thanks BD for that cooking advice as I'm extremely cooking challenged I can use all the advice I get. Will post later here how my version comes out.

Meow