Shepherd's pie
"It is both spoonable self-medication and something that the clumsiest kitchen clot can knock up." Tony Naylor - The Guardian
I have an alarming amount of leftovers in my fridge that I must use up pronto. So today I am going to make good old Shepherd's Pie. How British can you get - as Jamie Oliver's version shows? Mind you he has a posh glass of wine with it (as shall I) although Felicity Cloake reckons you should be drinking tea or maybe beer.
It is very British isn't it? I truly cannot think of any equivalent French or Italian, or even German dishes that are similar in any way. Indeed one is almost tempted to think that the French don't have leftovers. And maybe they don't. They are perhaps better organisers.
For Shepherd's Pie is the ultimate leftover dish. And just to clarify - Shepherd's Pie is made from lamb and was first used as a name in the mid nineteenth century. Cottage Pie is made from beef, and was first named back in the eighteenth century, but is basically the same thing. So mostly people don't worry about which you use and mostly people use whatever meat they fancy. The Jamie Oliver version above, for example, uses veal (but fresh).
"by its nature an improvised dish, nevertheless it is one to approach with a certain amount of care and respect – because when you make a good one it's one of the most delicious things on the planet" Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall
The Shepherd's Pie that I know and love is basically the same one that my mother cooked back in my youth, and which became a family favourite with my own children. Elizabeth David, I am sure, would have poured scorn on it - there is no recipe in her book Spices, Salts and Aromatics in the English Kitchen and Robert Carrier, too does not mention it, although he does do Irish Stew and Lancashire Hotpot. Delia has a couple of slightly impure versions. Maybe neither Elizabeth David, nor Robert Carrier ever did anything with leftovers. My mother put the leftover roast - lamb or beef, it didn't matter, through a mincer with an onion. This she would mix with leftover gravy and some mixed dried herbs. This would be topped with mashed potatoes and baked in the oven until heated through. Very simple and you can see how others might mock. There is a danger of it turning out to be something gloopy and nauseating - nursing home food. But, perhaps surprisingly, it's very tasty. The potatoes have to be crispy on top. And I do make a similar version, though I now don't have a mincer so I chop it in the food processor, and I add fresh herbs mostly. If I have some other leftover vegetables I might put them in too. It is indeed an improvised dish. Oh and I grate some cheese on top.
I do acknowledge that it has a bad reputation though - like rice pudding which I also love. Jane Grigson quotes a nineteenth century article on the horrors of mincing machines and the resulting Shepherd's Pie.
"With the first mincing machines, prison, school and seaside boarding house cooks acquired a new weapon to depress their victims, with water mince, shepherd's pie with rubbery granules of left-over meat, rissoles capable of being fired from a gun." Pall Mall Gazette 1885
I suspect she partly agrees because at the end of her recipe and small commentary she implies that it's not really a great dish:
"If you use fresh meat and mince it or chop it yourself at home. If you season the dish well, if you cook and mash the potatoes especially for it, shepherd's pie - or cottage pie, as it's sometimes called - can be well worth eating."
Which seems rather like damning with faint praise to me - not a ringing endorsement like Hugh-Fearnley Whittingstall. So many 'ifs' and that 'can be' at the end! And she seems to insist on using fresh meat. Not a leftover dish for her.
Mind you when I started to look at other cook's versions I found that even those that used leftover meat, tended to cook the meat first Indeed Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall goes so far as to say, "frying before pie-ing is vital, to bring out even more meaty, lamb flavours." He also sautés the onions and any other vegetables you might be using. So maybe I should try that tonight. And like Nigel Slater he adds some Worcestershire Sauce to the mixture. Ketchup seems to be a possible too. I have sometimes added HP sauce. Indeed if you want a really good summary of the different 'proper' versions you should check Felicity Cloake's article in The Guardian. Mind you her final version looks a little runnier than mine. My base is more of a coarse purée. I don't think runny is good - well runny enough to soak up into the potatoes but not so runny that the meat is swimming in gravy. Here are pictures of her version and a simpler Jamie version than the one at the top of the page. He has six different versions on his website.
Then there are those that do not use leftovers but which do start with raw minced meat. The method is still much the same though. Most of the chef recipes you find are of this variety. I even found one by Marco Pierre White. Favourite herbs to use seem to be thyme, parsley and bay. Jamie used some beer as well. And of course, it's the perfect dish to muck about with in this way.
The other controversy is whether to have mashed potatoes on top or sliced ones. I must confess I was about to use some leftover roast potatoes, sliced on top, for a change - and I may still do that in the hope of using up some more leftovers - but the general opinion seems to be to prefer the mashed potatoes as a better accompaniment to the base.
"if you see anyone serving shepherd’s pie topped with sliced potato (that, right there, is a hotpot); in a pasty; or as a kind of neither-arse-nor-elbow jacket potato filling. All are a disgrace to shepherd’s pie’s good name." Tony Naylor - The Guardian
Then there are the radically different ones. As somebody said - do you really want a bolognaise sauce with potatoes on top? This is best summarised by Tony Naylor in The Guardian
"chefs (being chefs) will inevitably overcomplicate it in order to justify their wage. A shepherd’s pie does not need serving in a cast-iron mini Le Creuset pot, with the veg in a separate container and an optional pipette of extra gravy."
But here are two examples which might be worth trying. The first is from Madhur Jaffrey (picture only} - It's from Madhur Jaffrey's Cookbook: food for family and friends -and therefore has some vaguely Indian touches - and it's all fresh ingredients and quite complicated - the recipe takes up a whole page. The second is from Yotam Ottolenghi and it uses butter beans as the topping instead of potatoes - not to mention the filling underneath. One is tempted to ask why you would call it shepherd's pie. Which isn't to say it couldn't be delicious. And let's not mention the vegetarian versions.
Even Jamie Oliver has an extraordinary biryani version - with rice - two kinds - as the topping. But then I suppose there are very close ties between Britain and India. Hence the Madhur Jeffrey version.
The articles I found also talked about what you should eat with it. I shall be eating baked beans so I was pleased to see that Tony Naylor agreed.
"there is something about the smooth, emollient nature of baked beans, that – emotionally, rather than as a flavour enhancer – deepens the comforting nature of the shepherd’s pie experience." Tony Naylor - The Guardian
Enough - I think I have revealed my British plebeian origins sufficiently here. I must admit I have much more confidence in my Shepherd's Pie than my various attempts at stir fries though.
