Shepherd’s Pie is a traditional English dish that many people love and cherish. It is usually made with mutton or lamb meat and is one dish that pretty much everyone has heard of, tried and approved. If there is one skill that you’d do well to learn is how to cook Shepherd’s Pie. And when someone says Shepherd’s Pie, they, of course, mean a casserole with a layer of vegetables and cooked meat, as well as the addition of mashed potatoes. This is surely a winning combination.
Required ingredients for the dish are:
- 1 large chopped onion
- 1tbsp. sunflower oil
- 500g minced lamb meat
- 2tbsp. tomato puree
- 2-3 medium-sized chopped carrots
- 3tbsp. milk
- 85g. butter
- 900g. potatoes, sliced into chunks
- Worcestershire sauce
Once you have acquired the needed products, it is time to get to work. Carefully go through each of these steps to ensure there is no problem with the oven cleaning later on and the dish outcome itself.
- Grab a medium-sized saucepan and heat the oil in it. Once the desired temperature is reached, soften carrots and onion in it for a few minutes. After that, turn it up a notch and increase the heat. Add meat to the mix and tip off excess fat. Include the sauce and the tomato puree. Fry the mix for a few minutes and add in beef stock, if you want to make a pie of mixed variety. Bring the ingredients to a simmer and cook for no more than 40 minutes. Be sure to remove the cover halfway.
- Heat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius in the meantime. It is time to make the mash. Pour salt in water and boil the potatoes in there for about 10-15 minutes. Try them out and see if they are tender enough. That is how you will know they are ready. Mash them and add the milk and butter.
- Place the minced meat in an ovenproof dish. Top it with the mast and ruffle with a fork. The beauty of the dish is that you can freeze it at this point and store it for over a month. When ready to taste it, you should bake for about 20-25 minutes till the top layer of mash start to colour and the mince starts to bubble at the edges. If you want to bake it frozen, heat the oven to 160 degrees and keep it in there for up to one hour and a half.
As you can see, there is nothing complicated about cooking Shepherd’s Pie. It is up to you to cook the meal properly and enjoy it.
