A Great Recipe with Beef instead of Lamb
Shepherd’s Pie
FOR POTATOES: 5 LBS. RUSSET POTATOES
2 TSP. SALT 1/4 CUP SOUR CREAM
3/4 TSP. BLACK PEPPER 1/2 STICK BUTTER OR MARGARINE 3/4 CUP MILK
BEEF FILLING:
SMALL ONION (DICED) 1.5 LB. GROUND CHUCK
1 TSP. WEBER STEAK N CHOP
1/2 CUP BROWN GRAVY MIX
1 TSP WORCESTERSHIRE SAUCE
2-15 OZ. CANS MIXED VEGETABLES
DO NOT USE FROZEN VEGETABLES
Potatoes: Peel and cut potatoes-simmer in a stock pot for 35 min. on medium heat. Drain-add salt, sour cream, black pepper, milk and margarine. Cream with a stand mixer or hand mixer until light and fluffy.
Filling: Brown beef with diced onion. Drain if needed. Add steak n chop, brown gravy mix, Worcestershire, and liquid from one can of veggies. Cook on medium until liquid evaporates.
Spray baking dish with cooking spray. Add half the potatoes to the bottom of the dish. Add drained veggies around the outside edge. Add beef in the centre. Top with the rest of the potatoes around the edges of the baking dish. Bake at 400 degrees until brown and bubbly. Option: substitute canned veggies with fresh pre-cooked vegetables simmered in beef broth.
Shepherd’s Pie
Shepherd’s pie, cottage pie, or in its French version hachis Parmentier is a savoury dish of cooked minced meat topped with mashed potato and baked. The meat used may be either previously cooked or freshly minced. The usual meats are beef or lamb. The two English terms have been used interchangeably since they came into use in the late 18th and the 19th century, although some writers insist that a shepherd’s pie should contain lamb or mutton, and a cottage pie, beef.
Shepherd’s pie
According to the American Merriam-Webster dictionary, the first known use of the term was in 1854. In British usage in the 1850s, the term referred to a Scottish dish that contained mutton and diced potato filling inside a pastry crust. Neither shepherd’s pie nor cottage pie was mentioned in the original edition of Mrs Beeton’s Household Management in 1861.
More recently “shepherd’s pie” has generally been used for a potato-topped dish of minced lamb. According to the Oxford Companion to Food, “In keeping with the name, the meat should be mutton or lamb; and it is usually cooked meat left over from a roast”. As with beef, it was commonplace in the days before refrigeration to cook a Sunday joint to last in various guises throughout the week. Dorothy Hartley quotes an old verse, “Vicarage mutton”, showing not only the uses to which, the joint was put but also the interchangeability of the terms “shepherd’s” and “cottage” pie:
