Shepherd’s Pie is a very involved dish with many ingredients and many dishes needed to make it. Because I was short on time and wanted to eat before 7, Christine was nice enough to assist me make this dish. I peeled about 2 pounds of potatoes while Christine chopped up a green pepper. Once I got a pot of water boiling, I threw the potatoes in and was lucky enough to be the one to chop up the onion. Tears welled up in my eyes as I was cutting the onion as Christine started peeling 3 carrots. I heated up some olive oil in a pan and sautéed about a teaspoon of minced garlic before adding the pepper, onion, and ground beef. I was waiting on the carrots but they joined the party a few minutes later. While the vegetable and beef mixture began to cook, I made a roux to start my gravy in small sauce pan. I melted two tablespoons of butter and added two tablespoons of flour. Once that was fully mixed, I added a cup of beef broth and two tablespoons of Worcestershire sauce. I dropped the heat to low and let that thicken up.
Matt showed up around 6:30 and we weren’t even close to done so I had him join in on the fun and finish the mashed potatoes for me. I have never made the mashed potatoes like I did last night but they came out great so I think I will be making them like this from now on, but I will keep making changes until they are perfect. Once Matt had mashed the potatoes I added one egg yolk, ½ cup of chicken broth, two tablespoons sour cream and about a cup of Colby jack/cheddar cheese. Using a hand mixer, Matt mixed them up until they were silky smooth. Corn isn’t yet in season so I used a steamer bag from the frozen section and cooked that in the microwave.
Finally, I could put everything together and throw it under the broiler to give the potatoes a little bit of a crust. I combined the gravy with the beef and vegetables and put that in the bottom of an oval pan. On top of that was the whole bag of corn followed by the mashed potatoes. I sprinkled some paprika on top of the potatoes and put it all in over for about 5 minutes until golden brown. It looked good once it was done, I just hopped it would taste as good as it looked. Everything mixed together when I scooped it onto our new plates, so it took some time to pick out the flavors from each piece of the dish. Like I said before, the potatoes were great. They were fluffy and had a light cheesy taste. The paprika added a little heat which went well with the heaviness once everything had combined. All of the vegetables gave the dish a lot of color and added a nice crunch to what could have been a mushy dish. The beef had little flavor which I think the gravy was suppose to make up for. The gravy didn’t really add much to the dish so I’ll need to fiddle with the recipe because it was after all, pretty basic.
This definitely came out better than my previous attempts but I think I may switch out the ground beef for sirloin next time. Hopefully it will be worth the added expense that comes with the sirloin. Christine and Matt both seemed to enjoy it which is all that I could have hoped for. I thank both of them for assisting me; it was fun working with others on the same dish.
Rating: Yummy – Getting closer to a go to dish, needs work on the gravy though.
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