How to make the best shepherds pie! Here is a tasty filling meal for the whole family. Some might consider this the best in comfort food. Shepherd’s pie is a meat pie with ground lamb and mashed potatoes layered on top. If you were to substitute ground beef for the lamb then you would have cottage pie. Originally this dish was a great way to use leftovers to create something new and tasty. Nowadays most folks make this dish as an original meal. What makes this particular recipe different is the beer!
That’s right, cooking with beer. When cooking with beer, the first step is to find a beer you enjoy drinking! For this recipe, one needs to find a beer with a lot of flavor. A Belgian ale, a porter or a stout. These are three examples of beer with a lot of flavor. Some may wonder about the alcohol in the beer. After 5 minutes of cooking, the alcohol is what gets cooked off. If the alcohol gets cooked off, What’s left? The flavor of the beer!
Making shepherds pie includes making mashed potatoes. It is part of the dish. In order to simplify this dish, the mashed potatoes can be made ahead of time. When you make the mashed potatoes it helps the flavors if both the meat mixture and the mashed potatoes compliment each other. How does one do this…have one or two of the spices in the meat mixture also in the mashed potato mixture. Easy!
Yukon gold potatoes 5-6 peeled
3 tablespoons of butter
1 teaspoon of rosemary
1 teaspoon of parsley
½ teaspoon of pepper
2 teaspoon of salt
2 ounces of grated sharp cheddar cheese
Directions for mashed potatoes
Add the salt and potatoes to the water before boiling. (leave about 1 inch of space in the top of the pot with the potatoes in, to prevent boiling over.) Boil for 15 minutes or when the potatoes are soft.
Drain all but a little water. Leave a little water in with the potatoes and add the butter, rosemary, parsley and pepper. Mash and stir with a fork. After well stirred add the cheese and stir some more. Set aside. Mashed potatoes can be made a day or two in advance.
1 ⅓ – 1 ½ lbs of ground lamb or lean ground beef
½ cup of diced onion
1 cup of diced carrots
1 cup of green peas
2 teaspoon of rosemary
2 teaspoon of parsley
2 cloves of garlic minced
½ teaspoon of salt
½ teaspoon of pepper
1 bottle of dark beer
2 tablespoons of ketchup
¼ teaspoon of cinnamon
2-3 tablespoons of flour
In an oven safe 10 inch fry pan, heat up the pan on medium heat, add salt and meat. Brown the meat.
Remove the meat and set aside. In the pan add the onions and carrots and saute for about 5 minutes or so.
Add the browned meat, peas, pepper, rosemary, garlic and parsley. Stir all and bring up to temperature. Pour 8 ounces of the beer into the meat mixture. Bring up to a boil and reduce the liquid by ½ stirring frequently.
After the liquid has been reduced to ½, add the ketchup and cinnamon and stir thoroughly.
Remove from the stove,
In a small bowl place the flour and a couple of ounces of beer. Stir to dissolve the flour.
The beer-flour mixture can now be added to the meat mixture and stir. Return the fry pan to the stove and bring to a simmer to cook the flour and create the gravy.
Once the gravy is to your liking, remove from the heat and spread the mashed potatoes on top and place in a 375 degree oven and bake for 25-30 minutes. You’ll know when it’s done when the potatoes have little bits of golden brown and there is a little bubbling of the gravy on the sides.