Saturday, February 27, 2010

Shepherd's Pie | Cookout . 11


Men at work, obviously. Work in progress. Don't try this at home just yet! Dinner's tomorrow, Sunday 2/28, at 18:00 hours GMT sharp, if you're hungry, in the neighborhood (Dot) and can bring a bottle of half-decent Chardonay - or whatever.

The Oxford American Dictionary  makes short shrift of shepherd's pie as ... a dish of ground meat under a layer of mashed potato. Wikipedia, which seems to know everything these days, and some of it may even be true, redirects inquiries to the older usage of ...
Cottage pie refers to an English meat pie made with beef mince and with a crust made from mashed potato. A variation on this dish using Lamb mince is known as Shepherd's pie.

The term cottage pie is known to have been in use in 1791,[1][2] when potato was being introduced as an edible crop affordable for the poor (cf. "cottage" meaning a modest dwelling for rural workers).
In early cookery books, the dish was a means of using leftover roasted meat of any kind, and the pie dish was lined with mashed potato as well as having a mashed potato crust on top.[3][4]

The term "shepherd's pie" did not appear until the 1870s,[2] and since then it has been used synonymously with "cottage pie", regardless of whether the principal ingredient was beef or mutton.[2][3][4][5][6][7][8] There is now a popular tendency for "shepherd's pie" to be used when the meat is mutton or lamb,[9] with the suggested origin being that shepherds are concerned with sheep[10] and not cattle,[11][12] however this may be an example of folk etymology.

In the United States a similar dish is called cowboy pie. In New England the most common recipe for shepherd's pie consists of ground beef, canned creamed corn, and mashed potatoes
Now I've heard of cow pies, and stepped in a few, but never cowboy pies. And cottage pie is obviously an English affectation with corrosive class overtones. So Shepherd's Pie it is. We're going to make a vegetarian version of the New England variation, with a few more ingredients to replace what used to be known in this kids' fave as hamburger.


INGREDIENTS

1 head cauliflower, divided into bite-sized florets
peas, frozen and defrosted
corn kernels, frozen and defrosted
onions, chopped
scallions, thinnly sliced
thyme, dried and crumbled
curry powder
butter
flour
vegetable stock
white wine
extra-sharp Cheddar cheese, grated
Parmesan cheese, grated
potatoes
milk
yogurt, low fat
garlic, minced and mashed or pressed


PREPARATION

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