Need tried and true Shepard Pie recipe.

My sister-in-laws wife wants me to make Shepards Pie for Saturday night. What are your favorite recipes and ingredients to include?

I know there are recipes with lamb and Middle Eastern type ingredients, but here's what my mother used to call Shepherds Pie and what I made on many occasions for my boys when they were younger (I doubt it's what you're looking for). In a cast iron skillet, brown 1 lb. of ground beef with a chopped onion. Stir in a can of tomato soup and an 8 oz pkg of frozen green beans, cover the skillet with mashed potatoes and bake in the oven until the potatoes start to brown.

First, find a dead shepherd...

[Jenise]

No recipe, George. I use ground meat and cook that with onions and herbs, thicken it with heavy flour slurry and some broth, then usually add frozen peas. I also typically add a big handful of panko bread crumbs per lb of ground meat which pretty much dissolves during baking but which helps create a more solid meat layer that doesn't ooze apart so much when cut into. I usually season the mashed potatoes in a complimentary fashion. Like rosemary if I've used lamb, for instance.

Jenise's recipe is very close to what my mother used to make. Ground beef cooked with onion, peas, and some herbs. Put that mixture in the bottom of a casserole, cover with mashed potatoes, then bake until the top browns.

Disclaimer: I've never liked Shepard's Pie, myself.....

-Paul W.

George, if you really want to "wow" them, then make this: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Braised-Lamb-Shank-Shepherds-Pie-with-Creamed-Spinach-104641

[Jenise]

Carrie, that looks SUBLIME.

It's namedShepherds Pie indicates it's made from lamb.*


Same recipe made with other meat, usually beef, is Cottage Pie.

So some people will order Cottage Pie from a menu but not Shepherds Pie.

I've not had either for decades, not my favourite, so can't help with recipe. These dishes were what people like mum made to use up leftovers. Mince up the remains of Sundays roast meat, cook-up chopped onions, maybe carrots, add minced meat, stir in some thick gravy, put in dish and cover thickly with mashed gravy and bake till top is browned. It's a poor persons dish making a filling inexpensive meal by stretching a small amount of meat with vegetables.

*Supposedly originally what shepherds made with the carcasses of young lambs that didn't survive.

Carrie, that looks SUBLIME.

Oh it is...I made it in January of this year with leftovers from the Seven-hour Leg of Lamb I made for our wine group. I can't wait to make both dishes again. Maybe for New Years. My parents will be out here.