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A Pie. With lots and lots of food in it.


Thorn Wilde

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Magpie's got a case of the Man Flu, which means that he's mostly lying on the couch whimpering and watching QI. When I asked him what he wanted for dinner today, he said, 'Lots and lots of food,' with roughly the coherence of your average hungry baby bird. I figured I'd better fix him a calorie bomb to give him some energy.

 

So I went to the shop, had a look around and came up with a cunning plan.

 

I'm very fond of Shepherd's Pie and its cousin, Cottage Pie (which is made with beef instead of lamb or mutton). I took my inspiration in part from these, and in part from a Scandinavian dish that my mum used to make when I was a kid.

 

It turned out very tasty, so I thought I'd share with you this recipe for an as of yet unnamed pie.

 

 

 

Ingredients:

 

400g minced pork

300g smoked bacon

1 yellow onion

2 cloves of garlic

1/2 cauliflower

300ml cream

black pepper

rosemary

thyme

 

500g mashed potato

 

 

1. Turn your oven to 200C (390F).

 

2. Chop your onion and garlic as finely as you can be bothered. Divide the cauliflower into smaller trees. Chop your bacon into bits.

 

3. Heat a frying pan to high medium. If your bacon is nice and streaky and you have a non-stick pan you don't need any extra fat to fry in. Start with the bacon. When the fat is starting to melt and sizzle, add the onion and garlic. Add the minced pork when the onion starts to look shiny. When all the meat is brown, add the cauliflower and let it all cook together for a couple of minutes.

 

4. Add the cream. I used double cream because it thickens more easily, but if you want slightly less fat (not that it matters at this point) single cream will do just as well. Let it cook until the gravy is nice and thick. Season with black pepper, rosemary and thyme to taste.

 

5. Pour everything into a deep oven pan and cover in mash potato (just like you'd do with shepherd's pie or cottage pie). I was lazy and used instant mash today, but I'll post a recipe for mashed potato later. Bake in the oven for 10-15 minutes, or until the mash is starting to look nice and golden.

 

 

Serve with pickled beets, gherkins, or do what we did and add lingonberry jam (available for purchase at an IKEA near you if you happen to live in a country that's never seen a lingonberry). This is about as healthy as your average carbonara, but it's very tasty!

 

Serves 3 or 4 if you're normal people, or just two if you're me and Magpie. :P

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If you rough the top up with the fork and add nobs butter to the top of the mash you get lovely crunchy bits of potato I will have to try your recipe out next time instead of shepherds pie it sounds great

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We tried your "pie thingy" for dinner last night, with one small change. Instead of just cauliflower, since I didn't have time to get to the green grocer we used a bag of what is called winter mix here - cauliflower, broccoli, water chestnuts, pea pods all mixed together. It was a hit, and its official name in my hand written cookbook is "Thorn's Pie Thingy". No changing the name now dear - its in ink.

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Haha! That's a good name. I shall keep it. It occurred to me the other day that adding a little bit of worcestershire sauce would probably be very tasty, but this shall have to be tested.

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Worcestershire sauce what a great idea just to add a little bit of spice .

I always use it in shepherds / cottage pie and you can't have cheese on toast without it

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Hubby and I argued about adding hot sauce. We finally agreed to stick basically to your recipe the first try and experiment later. Something tells me it will be like my meat loaf, a little different every time.

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Those are the best recipes. I like it when they change every time you make them. My bolognese is like that. I always change the herbs a little bit. Some days I'll use marjoram, and some days I'll stick to oregano, and if I can get it I'll add lavender (those are always the best).

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