Hey everyone! So I thought I would kick-start 2017 with a wonderful comfort food dish, shepherd’s pie. This dish is actually inspired by my mother, she always loves to cook shepherd’s pie on a cold evening. And she loves making mash potato, but she would always add sweet potato without telling me because I used to dislike it. However, I never noticed it, and I loved it. So I decided to merge the two together, and it worked out brilliantly. The slightly sweet and light mash goes very well with the rich lamb filling.
What I love about Shepherd’s pie and that whole cottage feel it has (after all, a shepherds pie alternative is a cottage pie), is that when you serve it in the middle of the table, the dish simply spells out “good food, happy days”. And although you can present it nicely, it’s impossible to get all petite and pretty with a dish like this in my opinion. This is how I like a majority of my food when it comes to home cooking, so this is the kind of food I am going to be showing more of in 2017.
Ladies and gentlemen, I hope you all had a wonderful new year, feel free to comment on this post and subscribe to the blog if you want to stay updated with new recipes. Best wishes (:
Shepherd's pie with potato and sweet potato mash
Shepherd's pie with a bit of a twist on the mash.
Ingredients
Base filling
- 500 g of lamb mince
- 50 g of breadcrumbs
- 2 small carrots or 1 large washed and finely diced
- 1 onion finely diced
- 1 stick of celery finely diced
- 2 cloves of garlic chopped fine
- 1 tablespoon of tomato puree
- 2 tablespoons of Worcestershire sauce
- A few sprigs of rosemary chopped fine
- A few sprigs of thyme
- A heaped tablespoon of cornflour
- 75 ml of red wine
- 2 cups of beef stock
- Salt and pepper for seasoning
Potato and sweet potato mash
- 1 kg of potatoes peeled
- 500 g of sweet potatoes peeled
- 50 g of butter
- 150 mls of milk
- A pinch of nutmeg
- Salt and pepper for seasoning
Instructions
Lamb filling
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Use you clean hands to mix the lamb mince, breadcrumbs and a pinch of salt and pepper together in a bowl.
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Pre-heat a pot or a large pan, get it nice and hot so you can brown the meat nicely. Add a glug of olive oil then add your lamb mince. Use your spoon to break the mince up so you don't end up with meatballs. Once the mince is browned off, transfer it to a bowl.
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Turn the heat down to about medium heat, then add your onion, celery and carrots then sweat off in the pot/pan for about 3-4 minutes. Next, add in you garlic, thyme and rosemary and keep frying for another 1-2 minutes.
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Put your lamb mince back into the pot, then add the cornflour and stir through.
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Add your red wine, beef stock, Worcestershire sauce and tomato puree. Stir through, bring to the boil and then turn the heat down to a gentle simmer. Leave to simmer for about 20-25 minutes stirring occasionally so that the mixture doesn't stick to the bottom. Finally, season to taste with salt and pepper, then set aside.
Potato and sweet potato mash
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Get a pot of salted water, add your diced potato, then bring to the boil. Once the potato is slightly cooked, add your sweet potato. Once the potato and sweet potato are both cooked through, drain and then add back in the pot on low heat.
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Add your butter, nutmeg, milk, a generous pinch of salt and a generous pinch of pepper. Use a potato masher to mash until smooth, then turn the heat off and set aside.
Assembly
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Pre-heat your oven to 190 degrees Celsius.
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Fill a pie dish with the mince filling (make sure you leave some space for the mash). You can then either spoon the mash potato mixture over the top and smoothen it out, then perhaps put some fork marks in the potato to give a nice appearance once browned. Or, you can do what I did and pipe the mash potato on top using a star nozzle.
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Finally, put the pie in the oven for about 30 minutes to brown on top. Afterwards, you can finish it under a hot grill for a minute or two if you wish.
Recipe Notes
- Remember, if you don't have a piping bag, no big deal. Spoon the mash on top and use the forks to leave marks in the mash. That will also make the dish look presentable.Â
Beautiful pie and presentation.
thank you (:
Looks so comforting and delicious! I’d happily eat all of that 🙂
Thank you so much (:
Hmmm that is interesting, with shepherds pie you want to keep it simple. No need to over-complicate anything. If you have made both the mash and the mince filling really well, the rest of the recipe shouldn’t be too much of a problem (:
This looks amazing! I love that you used sweet potatoes for the topping.
Thanks so much (: The sweet potato worked really well. Keep up the good work on your blog.
delicious!
Thank you! (:
I love this recipe. Sweet potatoes are a great addition to Shepherd’s pie.
Glad you like it. I am super happy it worked out well (:
I made these last night, and they were awesome! Thanks for sharing this recipe. May God bless you.
Thank you so much! I’m glad you like it. May God bless you too (:
Mmm that was my dinner last night! I’ll have to tell my Englishman to try adding sweet potato. The children said it would have been nicer with more carrots so sweet potato would probably also do the trick.
Sounds great! Sweet potato definitely elevates the dish in my opinion. There are carrots in this dish, just not in the mash but I reckon perhaps pureeing carrot and mixing it through the mash would also work out nicely. Thanks for your lovely comment (: