Shepherd's Pie

I felt like some meat and wanted something quick and easy to cook. Shepherd's Pie came to the rescue on page 148 of The Essential Mormon Cookbook.

I am not sure if this could truly be claimed as a Mormon dish as unlike the infamy of funeral potatoes, I think many many households of many many faiths have a Shepherd's Pie of some sort or another. Perhaps it is the tin of tomato soup and a tin of sliced green beans that makes this instance of the dish a little Mormon (however I have discovered that the tin of this or tin of that is not necessarily a constant trait in Mormon cuisine, nor a pre-requisite...so I don't subscribe to that train of thought, never did actually...OK enough of the internal monologue).

Pretty easy to make, just cook up some mince with onion and salt and pepper to taste. Then place the mince into an oven proof dish and top with some beans. Now here I did change things up a little as the recipe called for tinned beans, but I opted for fresh beans that I blanched in a bowl with some boiling water from the kettle.

Pour over a tin of tomato soup and top with mashed potato. I had never heard of using tomato soup to make the sauce and was more tempted to make my own or use some pasta sauce (but then that would be like a bolognese so quickly went off that idea); stick to the recipe in the book as much as possible on this adventure.

I also left the skin on the potatoes when I mashed them for two reasons. One, I am lazy. Two, I think it tastes better and I like the texture. I think I cooked up too many potatoes, or not enough mince as the ratio of potato to mince was way out - I guess my mash was too much as I bought the right amount of mince per the recipe.

I topped it with grated cheese and then into the oven to bake for a while. When I took it out of the oven the tomato soup had boiled up on one side which was not expected; it certainly wasn't mentioned in the recipe it would do that - I can only assume user error (on my part).

Luckily this meal was not for family or friends so it didn't bother me....nor the mess I made of it when I served it up - totally used the wrong type of spoon to get it out.

Never mind, it tasted just fine. Next time I think I might add a beef stock cube to the mince just to "beef" it up a little.

Category	Shepher’d Pie
Ease of preparation	Easy
Time from prep to table	60 minutes
Taste	Meaty, potato-y, and cheesy - i.e. pretty good
Visual appeal	Mine, not so good
Radicality (i.e variation from my normal cuisine) out of 5	1
Recipe enhancement tips	Beef stock cube
Final assessment	Will make again, perhaps with less mashed potato on top!