Shepherd's Pie | Basics with Babish

today's episode is brought to you by Bushmills Irish whisky while many parts of your st. Patrick's Day celebrations won't be Irish at all at least one of them can when you celebrate by drinking Bushmills the first Irish whiskey edited a link in the video description for more for now let's get down to basics [Music] all right so the shepherd's pie contains four distinctly Irish ingredients the first of which as you can imagine is potatoes I got about three pounds of Yukon Golds here that I'm going to peel and have but just because they're pretty small already if you got big potatoes cut them in smaller pieces and I am dropping those into a large sauce pot which I'm going to cover with cold water by starting potatoes in cold water and bringing it up to a simmer it more evenly cooks the potato ensuring that your mash ends up creamy and not lumpy we are boiling these guys for about 20 minutes or until they show no resistance when stabbed with a paring knife then just like the episode of binging this week we're draining these guys returning them to the warm pots and placing them over medium-low heat we're then I'm gonna stir them around and cook them gently for about a minute which is gonna drive off any excess moisture ensuring that your potatoes end up fluffy instead of stodgy then we're going to kill the heat and add item number two on our Irish ingredients checklist some aged white Irish cheddar between three and four ounces depending on how cheesy you like your potatoes next up about a half a cup swath of high-quality unsalted Irish butter wolf Irish butter making sure that your fingers aren't too slippery when administrating and then this is optional but I like to load up the potatoes with about half a cup of chives then at this point we mash ideally you might want to use a potato ricer pressing the potatoes through the ricer and folding in the aforementioned ingredients after the fact but if you're like me and you can't find your potato ricer a masher is gonna work just fine we are seasoning the potatoes liberally with kosher salt and white pepper so as to not be speckle our potatoes and then into about half a cup of milk I'm dumping 2 egg yolks beating them together and adding them to the now kind of cooled down potato mixture this is going to help our potato topping Brown up in the oven give it one last mix and mash make sure that it is free of lumps and completely imagina sand then it's time to start our stew there's just a little Me's we have to put on plus we are finely mincing half a large onion and three to four medium carrots picking and finely chopping a few sprigs of fresh rosemary and thyme and peeling our garlic then into a lightly lubricated and preheated stainless steel pan we are depositing one pound of lamb you can use ground beef but remember that turns this into cottage pie plus the kind of gamey grassiness that the lamb really works well in this recipe anyway we are breaking that up in the pan and browning until lightly browned at which point you will find that you have an excess of lamb fat so we're gonna drain off most of that leaving two or three tablespoons worth in the pan then directly to the lamb we are first adding our finely minced onions stirring around and sauteing for two to three minutes or until beginning to soft it and turn translucent around the edges then we are adding our carrot which we're also going to saute for 2 to 3 minutes or until it begins to soften then we're gonna make a sort of hole in the middle of the pan into which we're going to crush our garlic I'm going with about 3 cloves worth because I like a lot of garlic and then we are surrounding that garlic with a few tablespoons of tomato paste making a hole in the center of the saute ensures that your garlic and tomato paste get direct contact with the heat we are then mixing those in and sauteing for another minute until it is very delicious and fragrant smelling we're then gonna add our chopped fresh rosemary at a time give it a little stir around let those flavors get to know each other and then it's time to make us a sauce we are going to accomplish that sauce by adding about a tablespoon tablespoon and a half of flour to this mixture mixing in and cooking until the raw flour smell dissipates and a beautiful fund has formed on the bottom of the pot about two to three minutes then it is time to delays with our fourth and final Irish ingredients some dark Irish stout I'm adding about a cups worth of stout and a cups worth of beef broth to this mixture you could use just beef broth if you want but the stout really kicks it up several notches we are then ensuring that we scrape up all that good stuff on the bottom of the pot that is pure flavor speaking of flavor we're also gonna add a few dashes of it's very hard to pronounce its name sauce and an optional tablespoon or two of Madeira last but not least my ace in the hole is one of my frozen pucks of Demi glass you may remember when I made these on the bone broth episode of binging if you don't have one handy that's totally fine it's optional but if you do it's really what makes the difference between something really good and something that blows your literal and proverbial pants off anyway we're going to cook this until thick enough that when you drag a spoon through it it leaves a trail and it's just not really shepherd's pie without some peas right so I'm gonna cook up some fresh peas but by all means use the frozen stuff they're actually better then once our peas are all cooked I'm going to ladle our lamb into a pipe this way we could see all the layers going on I'm gonna top that with our cooked peas and then a lot of people top their shepherd's pie by just sort of placing the mashed potatoes on top and chunks and then smoothing it out but I like to use either a pastry bag or just a zip top bag like this one to pipe it out evenly across the top of the pie is it a slightly unsettling image kind of but it's gonna ensure that you get a uniform and clean layer of potatoes on top of your stew so once you've got your mash all evenly distributed I'm gonna use something like an offset spatula to kind of even it out and then I'm gonna use something like a fork to rough it up because we want as many crackles and cracks as humanly possible to promote lots of nooks and crannies that can Brown and get crispy and yummy I think that whole sentence might be the name of my next cookbook I'm gonna set this pie plate on a sheet of parchment paper set in a rimmed baking sheet just in case there is any overflow or spillage then I am placing it in a preheated 350 degree fahrenheit oven for about 25 minutes removing it at the 15 minute mark to top it with even more grated cheddar this again is totally optional you could leave the cheese out of this recipe entirely and it would still come out wonderfully back in the oven it goes for the remaining 10 minutes and then I'm gonna throw it under the broiler for two to three minutes until it gets super bread and crispy on top and there you have it maybe not the most authentic shepherd's pie in the world but for sure the best one I have ever eaten the potatoes are buttery and chattery the peas give a nice earthy contrast and the stew is rich and flavorful beyond the point of reason you know it's gonna go really well with the shepherd's pie that's right Ireland's first whiskey Bushmills and my spit in a tube DNA testing says that I'm 36.5% either British or Irish so you can trust me I want to thank Bushmills again for sponsoring today's episode they are the perfect libation to authenticate your st. Patrick's Day celebrations long before rivers ran green and leprechaun hats confused this Irish tradition Irishmen drank Bushmills responsibly and enjoyed each other's company without referencing so much as a single shamrock after all it's Ireland's first whiskey and crafted in the world's oldest whiskey distillery head to the link of the video description below to check out more from Bushmills and please remember to celebrate responsibly and maybe don't dress up like a leprechaun [Music] [Music] you [Music]

Channel: Babish Culinary Universe

Views: 3,574,367

Rating: 4.9491239 out of 5

Keywords: basics with babish, binging with babish, babbish, cooking with babish, pear qwerty horse, shepherd's pie, shepherd's pie recipe, shepherds pie, shepherds pie recipe, how to make shepherd's pie, how to make shepherds pie, shepards pie, shepards pie recipe, how to make shepards pie, shepherd's pie at home, shepherds pie beef, babish shepherd's pie, babish shepherds pie, shepherd's pie with vegetables

Id: Uj8BC2kcp7A

Length: 7min 7sec (427 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 12 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/mistermatth]

Totally making this next week