Shepherd's Pie in a cast iron pan | lamb and peas filling, cheesy potato topping

a classic british shepherd's pie may be the greatest cold weather dish ever and if you cook it the whole way in a big cast iron instead of transferring it to a casserole or something it's a pretty efficient meal plus you get more brown crust per bite when you bake it in something wide and shallow a big 12 inch cast iron or any oven safe pan is fine and it's a shepherd's pie so we need some shepherd i mean sheep two pounds of ground lamb almost a kilo and i'm just putting it into a dry cold pan and smooshing it out into a wide thin disc i'll turn the heat on high under that and it'll render out enough fat to cook itself while it's getting started i'll prep my vegetables and while i'm loath to admit it i do like this thing i got from gordon ramsay where you grate the carrots and onion rather than chopping them you could chop them but grated they seem to form a structural mesh that helps bind the filling together in the pie that's one big onion and three or four carrots and over here i can smell that my mince is browning on the bottom brits call it mince even though it's ground not minced a stout wooden spoon is really the only tool for a job like this and as i stir the veg in and break everything up you can see the literal base of brown flavor i've already got and we can get more but first we've got to evaporate a ton of water out of this pan about five minutes after the veg went in i can feel things drying out so i'm going to reduce the heat to medium at this stage things could get out of control really fast and burn once i start seeing a carpet of brown stuff forming on the pan that i can't readily scrape up i know i've done about all i can do got to deglaze soon so in goes a huge squeeze of tomato paste maybe a quarter cup and a quarter cup of flour 30 grams if you want your filling to be really solid inside the pie you could use like twice that much flour i don't want it to be too gluey i'll stir and cook that for as long as i can until burning is imminent which is just going to be a couple of minutes in there we got to get that off the bottom you know i'm going to use white wine i think it's amazing how much it improves a dish like this it just makes it so much brighter and fresher in the end i'm putting in half a bottle and scraping until the bottom of this pan is clean a lot of people like red wine and this if you use it i recommend half as much or it'll get bitter and if you don't want to use alcohol water or stock is fine with a big slash of balsamic vinegar if you want that same sweetness and acidity you can add the vinegar to taste at the end now more flavorings i think you almost can't have enough worcestershire sauce like give me a whole bottle or at least half a cup 120 mls dried herbs i'm doing a ton of dried thyme and sage you're flavoring not only the mince but the potato topping too so i think it should be really strong garlic powder is phenomenal in something like this where it can really rehydrate and i like some mustard powder too if you got it no salt until we can taste for seasoning because the worcestershire sauce is so salty and then just enough water or stock to cover everything stir that all in and then i will simply reduce it to a simmer and let it cook down until thick i think the texture is really better if you give it an extra half hour at least to stew like this and dissolve some collagen or whatever and if you're a lucky duck like me and you've got a few ice cubes of chef john style homemade demi-glace in the freezer now is a great time to deploy them a big spoonful of store-bought stock concentrate or something would perform a similar function or a stock cube you just won't get the luscious texture the demi-glass provides and now it's time to consider the considerably less healthier layer of the pie potatoes i'm marginally able to get away with eating this because for breakfast i enjoy the sponsor of this video magic spoon cereal let me thank them ooh the new peanut butter flavor magic spoon is 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hack those into chunks for faster and more even cooking i like a relatively thin potato layer on my pie if you want something more like equal parts potato and meat filling you could almost double the potatoes here fill that up with water bring it to a boil and simmer until very fork tender not like that like that falling apart when you stab them drain them through a gap in the pot lid and you don't have to get a big colander dirty this is a two-pot dinner time for butter and you know they like a bit of shepherd's pie in ireland too i'm doing a whole darn stick of butter you could use less heat is off and i'll just let it melt in there in the residual heat while i finish up the meat you want to reduce this until it's quite thick or else it won't hold together at all in the pie time to taste and make final adjustments i'll grind in a huge amount of pepper and i think i want some more garlic powder and a big pinch of salt i love this kind of meal because there should be no surprises you can taste every element before it's done and if it needs some more sweetness or more acid or more salt or anything you can just stir it in and taste again you can't lose now fully off the hot burner this comes the cooler this is the more viscous it is and the more viscous it is the easier it will be to spread our potatoes on top they won't just sink speaking of which i'll put in a glug of milk and a pinch of salt to start with and start mashing might could put in some more milk it should look looser than you want it at this stage because we're going to put in more stuff that will cause it to thicken and set later cheese a lot of people put in parmesan feels wrong to me i'm just putting in some sharp english cheddar looks like i did maybe 50 grams there a couple ounces and then egg yolks these are what make the potato topping set into a puffy solid pie crust plus they taste great two should do it i'll get that all mixed in and then taste for seasoning needs more salt and there we are at the last possible second i'll chop up a little fresh rosemary from my plant and dump that in you don't have to have that also at the last second a whole 10 ounce bag of frozen peas that's 280 grams you do that at the last second and you're going to keep the peas from being disgustingly overcooked by the end plus if they're frozen they're going to cool this down which makes it more solid and therefore easier to top smooth everything off conversely the potato topping should be still hot when you put it on otherwise it won't flow as easily as you're trying to spread it around you can make things a lot easier by depositing it in drops all over the pie now you simply don't have to spread it as far to reach the edge i like kind of pulling it with the spatula scraping and pulling toward the edge it can be a little tricky to do this without mixing the filling up with the potato but if that happens it really doesn't matter much and you certainly don't have to make a seal or anything i just like how the topping goes brown and crispy on the pan edge the more irregular the potato top the more browned surface area you'll have hence the tradition of forking the top i'm just doing a spiral pattern for fun and in this will go to an already hot oven 400 fahrenheit 200c a convection fan is good and it's good that this pan is not quite filled to the brim because it's going to bubble and puff up here we are after a half hour and see it's done when it's bubbly and puffy if you're not happy with the browning you've got you could always turn on the top element the broiler at the very end i've got some chives i'm going to slice up and scatter over top i'll be honest and say i'm probably only doing that for the thumbnail and the trick is just letting this rest and cool for at least 20 minutes i'm scooping it here after 10 minutes and you can see how hot it still is and therefore how liquid it is still darn tasty though that potato topping is so puffy if you're more patient and let it cool a little bit longer you're going to get a more solid texture on that filling i love how it's slightly sweet against the salty potato the white wine helps with that so go out provision yourself for the winter and as the brits would say tuck in

Channel: Adam Ragusea

Views: 780,899

Rating: 4.9322357 out of 5

Keywords: shepherds pie, cottage pie

Id: gAG3S55D9C4

Length: 7min 45sec (465 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 14 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/poopyheadthrowaway]

Didn't call it a grill

Who are you and what have you done with Adam?

[u/Gilliex]

This was a classic recipe from Adam. I personally use Henderson's Relish instead of Worcestershire Sauce and sometimes even use sweet potato mash instead! Delicious!

[u/skyner13]

This recipe also works great with ground beef, it would be a Cottage Pie if I remember correctly

[u/Grijsbokje]

I’m a Pescotarian (someone that does not wat meat but does eat fisch) so I make my cottage pie with a half vegetarian, half mushroom mixture. I’ts very delicious.