I picture a cozy country cottage (probably in the English or Irish countryside) and a family gathered around the hearth eating a meat pie covered in a thick layer of mashed potatoes.
Hungry yet?
Cook's has a video. Here's hoping it plays. (You probably have to go to the page.)
https://www.cooksillustrated.com/videos/2363-shepherds-pie
I attended a Christmas party last week at a German restaurant and one of the items listed for the buffet was Shepherd's Pie. I was so excited.
Turns out German Shepherd's Pie is very different. The meat is bratwurst and beneath the potatoes was a layer of sauerkraut. Different, but delicious still.
The next day while I was waiting for my daughter's coffee drink to be ready, I picked up a magazine that had Shepherd's Pie on the cover - but it was a chicken one. The drink took awhile to be ready, so I got to read a lot. Apparently there was a lot more to changing the recipe than just switching to chicken. I wish I'd noted which magazine it was in.😟
Onward to Christmas Day.
My husband and eldest always have Thanksgiving Turkey and Christmas ham, but my vegan daughter always selects some new dish for us to try. This year we made a vegan Shepherd's pie.
The reason I'm sharing it today is because I think substituting black-eyed peas for the lentils would turn this into a rib-sticking New Year's Day meal.
(I can hear all you carnivores screaming NOoooooooo!)😱😱😱😱😱
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| We started with diced onions, carrots, parsnips and garlic. |
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| Fresh thyme and sage. |
Mushrooms go in next.
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| Simmer everything for a while in the Dutch Oven. |
The recipe called for a covering of whipped cauliflower, but my daughter had been eating so much cauliflower lately that we decided to substitute mashed turnips.
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| The turnips rest lightly on top. |
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| After it's all baked. |
It looks like mush here, but it's the perfect comfort food - and not an unhealthy ingredient in there!
To give proper credit, the Shepherd's Pie we made was a mish mash of these two online recipes.
