Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Veggie Shepherd's Pie

One of my favourite winter warmer dishes is shepherd's pie and for years I've made my mum's recipe with beef mince and lots of Worcestershire Sauce. Living with Tinseltroos has meant that I needed to find a veggie alternative and I may have now done that. I cooked the recipe described below last night and am finishing it off for my lunch right now.

For the filling:

3 largish carrots, peeled and finely chopped
2 large parsnips, peeled and finely chopped
1 large red onion, finely chopped
1 pack of Quorn veggie mince substitute protein stuff
2 cloves of garlic, crushed and sliced
Slug of chipotle sauce
Slug of mushroom ketchup
Handful of parsely and oregano, chopped


For the topping:

6 potatoes (King Edwards are good) peeled and chopped
Grated cheese
Crème fraîche

Heat some olive oil and a knob of butter in a large pan. Fry the garlic and onion until they just start to colour. Add the carrots, parsnips, mince-stuff and the herbs. Stir until it's all well mixed. Add the mushroom ketchup and chipotl sauce, season and put the lid on the pan and allow to cook over a medium heat for 20 minutes or so, stirring occasionally and adding a little water if it looks like it's needed.

Meanwhile boil the spuds until mashable. Strain the water off the potatoes and mash them with the crème fraîche and half the cheese.

Pour the filling into an ovenproof dish, seasoning more if needed, and cover with the potato. Use a fork to score the topping into the pattern of your choosing. I favour a sort of check but each to their own and then sprinkle the rest of the cheese on top. Put into an oven at 180°C until the cheese has gone golden on top.

The success of this is down to the mushroom ketchup and chipotl sauce combination I think. The mushroom ketchup helps to add a bit of depth to the flavour plus some of that umami protein flavour that I find most veggie food lacks and the chipotle sauce adds some spice that traditionally would have come from the Worcestershire sauce.

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3 Comments:

Blogger LA said...

Aces! On a whim I hit your site from Churlishfigure's blog. Have been looking for decent vegg shepherd's pie for a couple of years. This one looks quite good! Will have to subsitute something else for the 'shrooms as I'm sadly allergic. Hmmm...

I'll try it and report back.
Thanks for posting the recipe.

1:51 am  
Blogger Mr Atrocity said...

Hi La,

The mushroom ketchup is there to add some richness and depth to the flavour. You could use some vegetable stock or something to achieve the same effect probably.

10:30 am  
Blogger LA said...

Good to know. I might opt for a big helping of nutritional yeast. I'm going to give this a try soon and give you the deets.
Thanks!

8:45 pm  

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