The Humble Shepherd's Pie

How many meals do you fix now that you ate as a child? Probably not too many. Do you follow the recipe exactly? Or have you made modifications?

One meal my mother made us was Shepherd's Pie and I followed her example when I had my own family to feed. Then when I went to visit my cousin in Canada, I found out she had created a different version. Huh, did our maternal grandmother make Shepherd's Pie too? It's not exactly a Mennonite Dish, but there are recipes for it in my Mennonite cookbooks.

Out of curiosity, I looked it up at Wikipedia.org, where I found I wasn't technically creating a Shepherd's Pie at all. Since I used beef, I was making a Cottage Pie. The Cottage Pie, dating back to 1791, was created as a way to use leftover roast meat and incorporate potatoes which were a new, affordable staple. Cottage referred to the dwellings of the poor - the homes of which were most likely to serve this meal. The name Shepherd's Pie didn't appear until 1877 and inferred by its title that the meat used was mutton. Although there are many variations by title and content such as Shepherdess Pie which has no meat, the St. Stephen's Day Pie made with ham and turkey or even a fish pie, they all seem to fall under the broad name of Shepherd's Pie. These days you may find Shepherd's Pie on the menu of many a pub or restaurant whether in the United Kingdom, the United States, or even Dubai. It's no longer confined to the kitchens of only the poorest homes.

If you try to Google it, there are as many recipes for Shepherd's Pie as cooks. The basic construction is a meat layer on the bottom, then a vegetable layer topped with a layer of mashed potatoes. I always made mine with ground beef, sauteed onion, and tomato sauce; then a layer of green beans topped with mashed potatoes. I thought I had duplicated my mother's recipe, but years later, I found out she used cream of tomato soup rather than tomato sauce. However, my cousin's husband didn't like onions so she left them out. She also used corn as her vegetable. I watched Rachel Ray make a Shepherd's Pie and she added shredded cheese to her potatoes. Turns out this is a versatile dish.

I've changed my recipe again since my children have moved out. David suggested using cream of mushroom soup instead of tomato sauce and it was delicious! (Think green bean casserole.) I still use green beans and mashed potatoes, but your imagination is the deciding factor as far as I can tell.

 Here's a quick how-to:

Brown hamburger meat in a skillet. (I use 1/2 pound for the two of us. Use more as your feeding more people.) Add 1 tablespoon dry onion soup mix and a can of Cream of Mushroom soup. Don't dilute the soup.

Add a layer of green beans. Again the quantity is up to you. For two people I may use only 1 can of beans, but when I was feeding 6 people I used 2 cans of green beans.

Now top with a layer of mashed potatoes. Use plain or dress them up as you prefer. Again, if you're feeding more people, add more potatoes.

Bake in the oven at 350 degrees until gravy bubbles up around the edges - 15 to 30 minutes depending on the size of you Pie. Turn on the broiler if you want a little more browning of the potatoes.

See how easy that is? So tell me, how do you make Shepherd's Pie?