Tonight I'm cooking a true British classic, and something that's very dear to my heart - shepherds pie. Look at this photo I say:
It's an old photo of my paternal grandmother - we used to call her Nanny, to her eternal frustration I'm sure, but that's how I'll refer to her here. She's flanked by my Dad, Phil, on the left, and my Uncles Dick and John. If memory serves this is from a birthday (if not then I just sullied the internet with a filthy lie, oops).
Around the time my sister and I were 11 or 12, we would spend every Friday at her house after school until Dad came to pick us up after work - she'd feed us all dinner and you could bet with 90% certainty that it'd be the ubiquitous shepherds pie. She'd make other things, of course, but I remember this dish more than anything because it was a lot like her - working class, honest, and full of heart.
Nanny spent World War 2 working in a factory in London, and during the Battle of Britain bombs would be dropping around her every day - she once told us how, after hearing an almighty bang, she and her colleagues went outside to find that the factory next door was no longer there. After moving to Australia and helping to build a house out in the bush, she was then left to raise 3 boys all by herself - and I think I can speak for my siblings and cousins that she did a bloody good job of it, too. You would always get a three course dinner - even if entree was just a cup of instant soup, and dessert a bowl of ice cream.
She didn't always get along with everyone, and she wasn't afraid of holding a grudge, but she loved her family and her sherry, and you could always count on her to give an honest answer and share a good joke. She was one of the strongest women I knew, and though I was still quite young when she died, it's to my eternal regret that I never told her that.
The Pie
Cottage pie was originally a cheap and easy way of making use of leftovers, and the main ingredient was any roasted meat that had not been eaten the previous night. The term 'cottage pie' was used because the peasants who used potatoes to top their pies - because they were well cheap - generally lived in cottages. So why do we sometimes call it shepherds pie?
I'll share some knowledge that might change your life - although the terms cottage pie and shepherds pie have been used interchangeably for well over a century, traditionally shepherds pie denoted a pie made with mutton (get it?), while cottage pie - the older name of the two - was usually in reference to beef. Neat huh?
What's really going to bake your noodle is that I'm using Kangaroo tonight, in alignment with my recent 'sustainable meat' policy, so I guess that makes it...Jackaroo pie? (I prefer Skippy pie myself). In fact, I came across the word slumgullion not long ago, and while I have no clue what it actually means, I thought it'd be a great word for "any meal made from the leftovers of various other meals" - so given the nature of our leftover roast meat pie tonight, it might be the most fitting name of all!
Some technical stuff:
Shepherds (or slumgullion) pie is something I actually know by heart - as I'm sure a great many do - so I'll briefly list my own personal routine for putting it together:
- Peel and roughly chop a couple of carrots, a few sticks of celery, an onion, and some garlic
- Heat some olive oil in a big pan and bung your veggies in. Cook them for 5 or 10 minutes
- Throw in about 600g mince of your choosing as well as any bacon you have knocking around, and brown for 10 minutes.
- Throw in a tin of diced tomatoes, some tomato paste, 250ml of beef stock, couple of good lugs of Worcester sauce, salt and pepper, and a bay leaf
- Bring to the boil then simmer gently for an hour or so. Throw in a cup of frozen peas
- Meanwhile make mashed potato, and pre heat your oven to I don't know, a normal temperature
- Put the cooked filling into a pie dish, layer the mash on top. Throw some grated cheese on top, you cheeky monkey
- Stick it in the oven for 20 minutes or so to your liking
Pretty simple right? This dish regularly makes its way into 'comfort food' collections and the like, and with good cause. It's one of those goodun's that bubbles away on the stove for a good hour before it's ready, filling the home with that mouth watering tomatoey, meaty, hot broth smell. And let's not forget that 'mashed potato' is ancient celtic for flavour sponge (I made that up).
Kangaroo is a delicious meat when it's slow cooked like this, although the lack of fat on it does mean you miss the gooey, gravy like consistency you want with this sort of dish. Otherwise all the ingredients work beautifully together, and at the same time are quite interchangeable. Swap out the meat for lentils for a vegetarian option - I've done that a few times and it's an absolute winner - or change the Worcester sauce for a few lugs of red wine.....then, you know....find something to do with the rest of the bottle...
Before I wrap up, I've an idea for you. The next time you put this together, get it simmering on the stove, then go outside into the rain and do something outdoorsey - catch a chicken or something. Coming back inside to this....
....will be absolute magic.
Throw it all in the oven, go have a hot shower, and then sit down to this
Shepherds/cottage/slumgullion pie. Just like Nanny Palmer used to make.
Flippancy aside for one moment, eating this still makes me think of a chilly Friday night in Darlington, two kids exhausted and hungry after a week of school, a man finally home at 7 after a week of work, and an old lady relaxing with a glass of sherry, having fed and watered her family for another week.
This is a dish you can really put some love into. It's like a warm hug for your insides.
Til next Sunday
-Jon
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