Shepherd's Pie (Saturday, January 29, 2011)

I wanted to attempt to recreate the Shepherd's pies that have cured countless hangovers of mine.  I'm not talking about the casseroles of ground beef and cheddar cheese that your mom used to make.  I planned to use the ingredients common at pubs around Saint Louis like The Scottish Arms and Dressel's.  Damn I love their Shepherd's pie!

On Saturday morning I took a trip to the Soulard Farmer's market to find some ingredients.  I'm always amazed how cheap some of the produce is there.  I picked up a 3.5 lb lamb shoulder, 4 lbs Russett potatoes, turnips, yellow onion and two giant carrots that made me feel like less of a man.  Trimming the shoulder to obtain minced lamb was a chore.  There was a shoulder blade, socket and some ribs within the cut of meat and it was difficult to navigate.  I ended up with a fair amount of meat for only $14 and I had plenty of bones for a stock so I started some water to boil. 

Into the boiling water went the bones and scraps from the lamb shoulder, the ends of a bunch of celery, unusable carrot portions, onion scraps, a bulb of garlic (no need to clean it up, just smash it), some week old basil nearing its end, fresh rosemary, fresh thyme, a hefty dash of kosher salt and some fresh ground black pepper.  I let this simmer for the better part of 3 hours. Not only did I end up with a great stock but I perfumed my apartment and the hallways of the second floor. 

Meanwhile, I peeled my potatoes.  I didn't need all 4 lbs for the pie, true, but mashed potatoes are just awesome and you can eat them all by themselves, which I did, for lunch.  I should point out here one of the rules I picked up somewhere.  Always start pototoes is in cold water and bring them up to temperature with the water.  However, never do this with pasta!  Unless you like mushy slop for dinner.  Another rule, always season the water with salt.  After the potatoes were fork tender drained them and let them cool a bit.  Into a big bowl they went with about 6 tablespoons of butter (that's 3/4 of a stick) and about a cup of milk.  I could have used a whole stick, and would have but this one was already open and it told me it would rather hang out with potatoes than the other butter in the fridge.  I think the whole sticks were making him feel insignificant.  I knew exactly how he felt in light of the giant carrots sitting on my counter.  Again I had a chance to use my new hand mixer I got for Christmas (thanks Momma!).  The potatoes turned out awesome and I didn't even use bacon.

When I finished the potatoes I realized I needed some parsnips too.  So I set out for the grocery store.  Mother#$%&er!  Behold, my truck has a new pimp lean.  The rear left tire was flat as possible, with the rim on the pavement and a shiny screw as decoration.  So, I got to work changing the tire.  I had to lower the spare from under the bed and surprise, surprise, it was also flat.  Erin came to the rescue and took me to get it inflated.  Then she watched me inch the truck off the ground one quarter crank at a time and put on the spare.  She followed me to NTB where they repaired the tire for $20 while we ran to the Shop and Save which luckily had parsnips, though they were prebagged and I nearly missed them.  We returned back to my limping Ford and after a mere 3 hour detour I was back to the kitchen.  I chopped my carrot, turnip, onion and ever important parsnip.  I set the stove to medium-high and browned a pound or so of minced lamb in olive oil (I froze the rest).  I removed the lamb and tossed in my veggies with a bit of butter and let the roots soften a bit.  I returned the lamb to the pan along with some red wine (I only use the best).  No, it wasn't $4 at Wal-Mart.  Why do you ask?  Obviously I didn't let my stock go to waste.  I strained out the bones and veggies and added about 2 cups to the pan as well with a few dashes of Worchestershire.  I let this reduce for a while and it wasn't as thick as I thought necessary so I used some good ole' fashioned cornstarch in cold water to thicken it a bit. 

Into the dish it went.  I moved the mashed potatoes I whipped a few hours ago into a large ziplock bag for easy application over my stewey goodness.  If I had a some frosting tips they would have resulted in better presentation but this method worked fine for a first try.  I then put the pie into a 400 degree oven for about 30 minutes and also made some quick biscuits from a tube to soak up what the potatoes couldn't.  It was absolutely heart warming and I will definitely make this again.  This took me nearly all day, but next time I'll use some of the leftover stock and hopefully won't have to repair a tire and I think it could be done in a little over an hour if you make and mash the potatoes while your stewing the vegatables and lamb.  It was also great when reheated in the microwave.  I made sure to have a hangover the next morning



The pie before going into the oven.  I forgot
to take a picture when it came out cause I
 was too excited to eat it, but it looked about
the same except for some browning on the
potatoes and oozing around the edges.