Shepherd's Pie

St Patrick’s Day is this week. I’m not Irish but a lot of people who live around here are.

So, something Irish I guess. I don’t even like Irish food really, so I guess this’ll be a good challenge to create something that I like. And that’s still easy enough for all my loyal if nonexistent readers to create.

Shepherd’s Pie

The biggest hurdle for me is that to make a true shepherd’s pie, it needs to be made with lamb. I can’t eat lamb, but substituting ground beef as I plan to do makes this something called ‘cottage pie’.

So I’ll tell you to use lamb. But you can substitute ground beef if you want.

Ingredients

1 package instant mashed potatoes

3 tbsp vegetable oil

1 medium onion

1 carrot

1 celery stalk

1 lb raw ground lamb

1 tbsp flour

¾ cup beef broth

½ tsp thyme

½ tsp rosemary

2 tbsp butter

Make the mashed potatoes according to the package directions.

Preheat oven to 400.

Chop the onion, carrot, and celery into small chunks. Place the pieces in a skillet with the vegetable oil. Cook over medium low heat until the vegetables just start to get tender.

Add the lamb and increase the heat to medium. Break up the lamb with a spoon and cook until it is no longer pink.

Add the flour and cook, stirring, for about two minutes. Add the broth, thyme, and rosemary, and cook on low heat for another ten minutes. The mixture should thicken as it cooks.

Transfer the mixture into a greased baking dish or pie plate. The size or material of this dish doesn’t matter, just make sure it’s oven safe.

Spread the prepared mashes potatoes over the top of the mixture.

Cut the butter into small pieces and spread over the top of the potatoes.

Bake in the oven about 30 minutes, until the potatoes are browned.

Notes:

You can use whatever vegetables you like in this. Mike swears corn is one of the essential ingredients, I personally think it would taste odd.

All that’s really required for this dish is a layer of meat, a layer of vegetables, and a layer of potatoes. Whatever you want will work fine.