British cuisine

Shepherd's pie

Name: Shepherd's pie
Prep time: 30 min
Cook time: 60 min
Total time: 90 min
Yield: 6
Cuisine: British cuisine
Ingredients: 700 g Minced lamb; 1 kg Potatoes; 1 Onion; 2 Carrots; 150 g Peas; 2 tbsp Tomato paste; 2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce; 300 ml Meat stock; 2 tbsp Plain flour; 60 g Butter; 120 ml Milk; 3 sprig Thyme; to taste Salt and pepper

Lamb in a thick gravy under mashed potato, baked to a browned crust.

Prep: 30 min
Cook: 60 min
Total: 90 min
Difficulty: Easy

Servings

Units

Ingredients

Minced lamb700 g
Potatoes — floury1 kg
Onion1
Carrots2
Peas150 g
Tomato paste2 tbsp
Worcestershire sauce2 tbsp
Meat stock300 ml
Plain flour2 tbsp
Butter60 g
Milk120 ml
Thyme3 sprig
Salt and pepperto taste

Salt and spices grow more slowly than the rest: doubling a dish does not double the pepper.

Weight converts to ounces and volume to cups. Grams of flour are not turned into cups, because that depends on how tightly it is packed.

Method

1
Fry the mince over a high flame, leaving it alone for the first minute so it takes dark colour. Lift it out, pouring off the excess fat.
8 min
2
In the same pan fry the onion and carrot for eight minutes, add the flour and tomato paste and cook two minutes.
10 min
3
Return the meat, pour in the stock and Worcestershire, add the thyme and cook uncovered for twenty minutes, until the gravy is thick.
20 min
4
Boil the potatoes and mash them with the butter and hot milk until smooth, seasoning generously. The mash should be firm rather than pourable.
25 min
5
Stir the peas into the meat, put it in a dish, cover with the mash and score the top with a fork.
6 min
6
Bake at 200 °C for twenty-five minutes until browned. Let it stand ten minutes before cutting.
35 min

About the dish

The name is precise: shepherd's pie is lamb only. Beef makes cottage pie, and in Britain everyone knows the difference. Shepherds kept sheep, not cattle.

The meat layer has to be thick, with almost no free liquid. Otherwise the mash floats and sinks during baking and the layers become a mush.

The mash is scored on top with a fork. The ridges brown and the troughs stay soft, and that difference in texture is half the pleasure.

Worth knowing

— Spoon the mash around the edges first and push it inwards. Dropped in the middle it pushes through the meat.
— Use a floury potato for the mash. A waxy one goes gluey however long you work it.
— An assembled pie keeps a day in the fridge. Bake it ten minutes longer from cold.

Nutrition

Per serving at the base yield, calculated from the ingredients rather than measured in a lab.

Calories: 620 kcal
Protein: 34 g
Fat: 32 g
Carbs: 48 g

Useful for this recipe

Oven Temperature Converter