I have fond memories of shepherd’s pie for tea back when the kids were younger, and I decided I wanted to give it a go as a vegetarian dish. It took a couple of times to get it right but it has turned out well. Due to it being a vegetarian shepherd’s pie, it has been rechristened a gardener’s pie!
This recipe does have a scary amount of mushrooms in it, but it is great if you are growing your own and have an oversupply, as we did the first time we made this dish. It is still worthwhile making though, even if you have to buy them!
Mashed Potato Cover
- 600g potatoes
- 60g butter
- ½ - 1 cup of milk
Filling
- 2 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 medium onion, diced
- 450 grams fresh mushrooms, sliced
- 1 cup of carrots, peeled and diced
- 1 cup of sweet corn kernels, diced cauliflower or diced celery
- 2 tablespoon tomato paste
- 2 tablespoon flour
- 500 ml water with 2 veg based beef stock cubes dissolved in it
- 2 cups frozen or fresh peas
- 2 - 3 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce,
- salt to taste
Mashed potatoes
1. Make the mashed potato by peeling and boiling the potatoes with a teaspoon of salt. Once the potatoes are cooked to fork tender, mash them, I use a wiggly masher but you could use a fork or whatever. Add in the butter and milk and re-mash until smooth.
Filling
2. Due to the large volume of mushrooms, which will cook down, you need to start off in a quite large pot so that you can stir things around without getting the mushrooms all over the place. I use a 4.5 litre stainless steel casserole cooking pot, and have found this works well.
3. Place the olive oil in the pot over medium heat, add in the onion and sauté until it becomes fragrant. Add in the mushrooms and other vegetables. If you are using fresh peas they will go in at this point, if you are using frozen peas they will go in later. Continue to sauté until the carrots are softened.
4, If you are using stock cubes (we use Massel ‘beef’ stock cubes) pour two cups of hot water into a container (I use a Pyrex style 500ml glass measuring cup), add the two stock cubes and stir to dissolve. If you are just using liquid stock, omit this point!
5. Add the tomato paste and flour to the pot. Stir around for a minute or two to cook the flour a bit and then add in the pre-prepared stock slowly and the Worcestershire sauce, stirring while it starts to thicken. Taste for seasoning and adjust as required. Continue to stir on low heat until the filling has thickened. If you are using frozen peas, add them now and mix them through the filling.
6. Remove from the heat and pour the filling into a 2 litre casserole dish. Add the mashed potato to the top of the pie in lumps and smooth out until the top is completely covered. I then use a fork to make crisscrossed lines over the top of the mashed potato. This helps it to brown (I think! It is something we have always done!).
7. Place in the centre of an oven at 180⁰C for 20 to 30 minutes or once the mashed potato has browned to your satisfaction. We have a table top electric oven which we use and it has elements at the top and bottom of the oven. I heat initially with the bottom element, but towards the end I turn on the top element to assist in browning the mashed potato.
8. Remove from the oven and enjoy!
We find that a quarter of the casserole dish each is sufficient for us without anything else to accompany it, so that we get two meals each from the one cook.
