Last night on Masterchef there was a challenge to recreate a childhood food memory. Which got me thinking, what would I do? And without hesitation the first thing that came to mind was Shepherds Pie. The comfort food we were given by Mum as kids... and even now. It's a cuddle on a plate.
Here's the Masterchef episode if you missed it...
Sunday week 2 2010 masterchef.
When I was much younger we always had Shepherds Pie the night after we had a roast lamb where the left over meat was ground in a hand mincer like this one...
Funny that that image came from a museum website. But I think the one Mum used was Great Grandfather's...
Then she'd make a gravy for the meat, place sliced tomato on the top and mashed potato over that then bake it until there was crunchy bits on the mash. But for the last... million years... she's been using beef mince. And this is about the only time she ever uses tomato sauce (or ketchup) for anything. A mixture of tomato sauce and Worcestershire sauce is added to flavour the beef mince and gives that savory-sweetish pat on the back that only true comfort food can give. Mum calls it a 'Mummy-loves-you' meal. She'd serve it with a crunchy green salad, often with sliced orange in it, and a garlicy lemon based dressing, on the side. You'd drizzle (POUR) the dressing over the salad and over the meat oozing out of your serve of pie. The dressing is always served in the jam jar (or similar) that was used to combine the dressing ingredients by vigorous shaking.
The round, pine table. The embroidered table cloth. Ten legs under the table.
It's my birthday today.
I'm making Shepherds Pie.
So I bought a small half leg of lamb and baked it this morning with garlic shoved in on a bed of sliced onion.
And I cooked it on about 160 deg C for an hour then covered it for another hour then added some water and uncovered it for a bit longer.
Or whatever.
Then I took it out and it looked like this...
Oh the aroma.
When it was cool I chopped it with my new sharp-as knife (as I don't have a mincer).
I also chopped that divinely sweet onion and added it to a saucepan with Australian olive oil and finely chopped garlic... and cooked it. I then added the liquid from the baking dish... and cooked it. Then in went the lamb...
Gosh it's hard to get a good photo of inside a pot.
Some dried mixed herbs went in too, and some tomato sauce and worcestershire. Just a bit of each, and some dijon mustard.
Then I mashed some spuds with a couple of garlic cloves in the water and mashed through.
And sliced some tomato.
Then assembled...
Dobs (?) of butter on top.
Then in an oven at 180 deg C until the insides are hot and the top has brown, crunchy bits on the peaks of buttery mash.
Yum.
That was a birthday treat from my childhood. A cuddle on a plate.
