This blast for the past kitchen is the type I associate with shepherd’s pie, also a blast from the past! Is it the same for you? Or do you think of a different era?
The kitchen/dining room I grew up with was a mix of eras, because money to renovate was a fantasy. I remember yellows and greens, and geometric wallpaper. There was a creamy-coloured gas cooker, with black knobs, my mother lit with a match. It seemed to me we lived with the constant threat of blowing our own eyebrows off. It might have dated back to the 1950s. Two small glass wall cabinets contained the few “good” glasses we owned, as well as stuff (presents) we never used, like decanters. A formica dining table was eventually replaced with a wooden (veneer?) extendable one, which had a mid-century modern feel, but probably not the price tag.
Some of the kitchens in this article are a blast.
When fashion does its full circle, as it always does, you get a new appreciation for what you grew up with. I wish I still had the formica dining table. Maybe the oven.
Shepherd’s pie or cottage pie?
The 1984 cookbook above is in my mother-in-law’s collection of recipes (I wrote about her recipes here too). Her kitchen was tiny, but produced a lot of these old fashioned dishes. Shepherd’s pie is on the first page, along with steak and kidney pie, braised steak and onions (I remember that coming in a tin? OMG just googled! It still does!), rissoles, and tripe 🤮 in parsley sauce.
The cookbook recipe calls for minced (ground) steak, so I interpret that as beef, though lamb also comes in steak. Purists say shepherd’s pie should be lamb (shepherd/sheep). Every other recipe on the page that lists steak is a beef dish, so there you go.
For modern tastes, I think the blast-from-the-past shepherd’s pie recipe needs more freshness, and a little extra depth, hence using both liquid stock and stock cube, extra carrot, peas and a massive handful of parsley. I serve with greens, in this case, roasted broccolini and asparagus, on a bed of rocket dressed with olive oil and lemon.
“And we will sit upon the rocks,
Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks,
By shallow rivers to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.And I will make thee beds of roses
-Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593), from “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love”
And a thousand fragrant posies,
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle”
Blast from the Past Shepherd’s Pie
Ingredients
- 1.5 kg mince beef (in photos here I used 1kg mince and 500g diced, need to leave a little longer simmering in pan if diced to soften)
- 3 carrots, diced
- 1.5 onions, diced
- 1 cup frozen peas
- 3 garlic cloves, minced
- 2 tbsp tomato paste
- 3 tsp worcestershire sauce
- 3 tsp soy sauce
- 1¾ cups stock, chicken or beef
- 1 beef stock cube
- 3 tbsp flour
- thyme, parsley
- salt, pepper
Potato
- 1.2 kg potatoes
- 80 g butter, plus extra if required
- ¼-½ cup milk
- salt, pepper
- egg, lightly beaten for brushing
- sprinkle parmesan to taste
Instructions
- Add a little olive oil to deep frying pan and cook mince on high heat until browned. Drain off extra fat or liquid.
- Add in onion and fry until transparent.
- Add in carrots and saute for a few minutes.
- Add in stock, tomato paste, handful of thyme, sauces, crumbled stock cube, salt and pepper, and bring to boil. Cover and simmer on low heat for 30 minutes.
- Separately, add ¼ cup water to the flour and mix till smooth. Add to the frying pan and stir, bring to the boil so that the meat mix thickens.
- Add frozen peas. then reduce heat and simmer for another 10 minutes. Stir through parsley.
- Put mix into ovenproof dish. Either top with potato and proceed to bake (potato can leak into the meat mix) or cool meat mix in fridge for reheating and baking with potato later (see baking below).
Potato
- Boil potatoes in salted water until very tender. Drain well. Add back to saucepan on very low heat, allowing any remaining liquid to steam off for a minute. Then mash potato well. Add butter and mash through. Remove from heat. Add additional butter if required. Add milk and mash until very smooth. Add additional milk if required.
- Season to taste. If you like parmesan, you can sprinkle through and mix.
Baking
- While both meat and potato are hot, you can top meat with potato. Easiest to blob potato on, then smooth with fork, taking it the edges to seal the meat in. Brush potato with egg, and bake in oven at 180℃/356℉ for 45 minutes until golden brown and top is crispy. However the potato can weep into the meat mix if both mix and potato are hot.
- Or, prepare meat and potato in advance and refrigerate until cool. Then assemble and bake as above. Or cool the meat only, then top with warm potato and bake as above. Keep in mind usual food safety rules re reheating foods.
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