We have a couple of variations. Normally we make traditional shepherds pie with left over roasts meat (lamb/beef/both), mince it down, chuck in some carrot and onion, and the leftover gravy from the roast (I make it with the roast drippings). Food processor is the bomb for this. Just gotta make sure you don't over do the processing otherwise meat is smoosh. You want sk e texture to it. Top with mash made however you like it. Depending on the day, I'll add onion flakes, salt, pepper, cheese, cream, butter, milk (not all at once!)
If making the meat mix from scratch unlike to put heaps of veg in. Brown meat, add onion, make a gravy to your liking (usually we is gravox, a bit of curry powder, maybe some tomato paste)then add heaps of diced veg. Carrot, parsnip, turnip, swede, sometimes celery, peas etc. depends on what's in season and what we want. We often make this to use up excess veg lol. Top with mash as above
We regularly make the mash with a combination of normal and sweet spud. Mum sometimes uses pumpkin in the mash. My aunt is diabetic and uses just sweet spud. All variations work nicely
We don't put anything on top. Mum puts egg wash. Personal taste really
We always make big batches and freeze a couple of meals. Means we can use everything up rather than half a turnip or something. No waste. And it freezes and reheats very well
Ooh another variation. If I'm in a slack biatch mood, well make a really simple curry (mince, onion, gravy, curry powder, maybe done chicken noodle soup) the top that with mash
It really is a dish that leaves it open to interpretation. If you can master a simple gravy based mince, you can top it with spud and you have a version of shepherds/cottage pie
Shepherds pie should be made with lamb traditionally left over roast), cottage pie with beef, but I think most people now consider them one and the same. They are usually sold in bakeries around here as potato pies...
The one I make has about 5-6 large potato's (boil or steam)
Mince has the campbell's beef stock (300mls) 900grams fine beef mince, tin of tomato soup, 1 large onion and 2 carrots (can put in corn and peas if you like but I only do carrot) brown the mince and make sure its nice and finely chopped up so no big mince in your mouth moments. Simmer all the ingredience so you end up with a lovely thick mince sauce. The simmering takes about 20-30mins or about the same time as boiling the spud does.
Then when the spud is ready I drain and mash it with about 3/4 of a carton of sour cream. Once its nice and creamy I add a spoon to the dish, flatten it out like icing a cake then add all your mince then spread the remainder of the spud covering all the mince. Then add approx 1 cup of grated cheese and bake for 20mins so the cheese melts. Its devince and a favourite in our house. The actual recipee that I know longer have came out of a That's life magazine.
A variation I use if feeling a little indulgent is instead of using mince, use some chunks of slow cooked chuck steak or gravy beef (shin meat). Cook it up in a gravy based sauce with whatever veggies you feel like throwing in there, then put it into a casserole dish and pile the mash potato on top with plenty of grated cheese and maybe some breadcrumbs if you want a crunchy top.
yes yes YES!
we freeze all the time - the only thing i'll suggest is to make sure you let it go totally cold first and then make sure the glad wrap sits against the spud. i do this with almost everything - to make sure there isn't any moist air that can create ice crystals etc.
I've not frozen shepherd's pie before, is the mash ok BG? I find chunks of potato in soup/stew are a big odd when defrosted, but mash has other things in it....
it comes out fine if you make sure it's got the seal on it like i mentioned. we freeze it all the time. i think because it's exposed to the heat directly when it reheats, any tendency for it to become a bit wet is dried out again with the reheating.
if you want to freeze stews etc, undercook the spud a little. it tends to go soggy because it's fully cooked and then it retains additional moisture when reheated.
we tend to get around that by putting it in the oven to reheat - micro reheats rarely happen here!
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It's delish! Just add frozen vegies and layer dish with puff pastry, yummo!
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