Indian spiced shepherd’s pie

It has been a while since my last post from BBC’s GoodFood magazine. This one is one of my all-time favorites, it is not unlike layered potatoes, which is a real Hungarian comfort food, and comes with tasty Indian spices. Easy to make, perfect for lunchboxes, all together a really nice dish to feature.

What you will need:

• 500g pack minced meat (turkey or beef)
• 1 onion, chopped
• 2 carrots, diced
• 2 tablespoons garam masala
• 200 ml hot stock (beef or chicken)
• 300 g frozen peas
• 800 g potatoes, diced
• 1 tablespoon turmeric
• salt and pepper to taste
• small bunch of coriander, minced
• juice half lemon

How to make it:

1. In a large frying pan, cook the meat, onion and carrots, stirring often, until the meat is browned and vegetables start to soften
2. Add the garam masala and some salt and pepper and cook for a further 2 minutes until fragrant
3. Pour in the stock, bring it to a boil, tip in the peas and cook for a further 2 minutes until the peas are cooked and the liquid has evaporated
4. Time to cook the potatoes. Using a large pan, and salted water, cook them until tender
5. Drain the potatoes, return them to the pan, and stir in the turmeric and the coriander
6. Heat the oven to 200 °C
7. Transfer the mince to a casserole dish, and top with turmeric potatoes
8. Squeeze over the lemon juice, then bake for 30-35 minutes until the potatoes are golden

The fact, that most of its ingredients are items that can be found in any kitchen, and its easy and fast preparation make this an ideal food to be cooked “in a pinch”, and the exotic spices guarantee that you will serve something that people don’t eat every day.

Peas in a…pottage(?!)

So we will kick this off with a Hungarian oddity. I did not really see this anywhere else, and according to Google translate, this Hungarian word translates into “pottage” so that is what we will go with.

Basically what happens is that you make a very (and I mean VERY) thick soup out of pretty much any vegetable you like. In this case it will be green peas, mostly because those are the only kind of vegetables I enjoy eating this way.

Here goes:

Greenpea pottage with sour cream

What you will need:

• 0.25 kg of green peas (fresh or frozen)
• 2 garlic cloves
• 1 tablespoon cooking oil
• 1.5 tablespoon white flour
• 85 g sour cream
• parsley to taste
• salt to taste

How to make it:

1. Wash the peas and start to cook them in just enough water to cover them in the pot.
2. Put the garlic cloves inside the cooking water crushed or cut into small pieces, add a little salt, and some parsley leaves(dried or freshly chopped). If the water starts to boil away, add some more.
3. While the peas are being cooked, we start with the thickening. Heat some oil in a pan, add the flour, and heat the mixture until it gets light brown(-ish). Add cold water to the finished thickening, then mix it with the peas.
4. Take half of a small container of sour cream, add a teaspoon of flour, and just enough of the cooking water to warm the mixture up. Mix it well and ad it to the peas.
5. Boil for another couple of minutes, and serve with topping of your taste (in this case I served mine with sausage).

I was too hungry to serve this in a really good looking fancy way, so you guys will have to make-do with an in progress picture.

Here it is in the pot, boiling.

You can read more about these kinds of food in this Wikipedia article