Some things just don’t need updating

 

 

 

          

Cottage pie
Photo by Mary Dulle

A day late but maybe not a dollar short: I usually do my cooking column on Thursdays, but all my attention was on my dog yesterday, so here’s the column I meant to write last night.

Scanning through the most recent copy of one of the few major cooking magazines left, I came across a recipe for Caribbean Shepherd’s Pie. Wrong, I thought! Absolutely terrifically wrong! Shepherd’s Pie is of British origin—there’s some disagreement among Shepherd’s Pie “scholars” about whether it came from Scotland or Ireland, but it was definitely the United Kingdom. And the dish calls up an image of a shepherd tending his flock, not a mental picture that translates easily to the Caribbean. Now I know much of that territory was once part of the far-flung British empire, but still.

Shepherd’s or Cottage Pie is a pretty basic dish—meat and vegetables in gravy, either surrounded by a crust or covered with mashed potatoes. Again “scholars disagree” about the names—some say Shepherd’s and “Cottage are interchangeable, but others insisted the meat in Shepherd’s Pie is lamb, the recipe originating in Ireland, and in Cottage Pie is beef and reflects either Scottish or British origins. According to one theory, the dish started in Scotland with a pastry crust but when the Irish fixed it, they added the potatoes, because they had aplenty. The vegetables traditionally are the root vegetables of winter—turnips, carrots, etc. In our country, most cooks use lighter vegetables—peas, carrots, corn, green beans.

So what distinguishes Caribbean Shepherd’s Pie? The Ingredients are pretty close to the usual, although there is a whopping 10 cloves of garlic and onions plus green onions. Breaking with tradition, though, the recipe calls for habanero chiles, ginger, tamari (a soy sauce made from miso paste), coriander, and thyme—to me, that’s a lot of discordant flavors in one dish. Plus the traditional ketchup. And the potatoes are whipped with coconut milk, which may be there for health reasons or may be an attempt to add another exotic ingredient. (You can tell I have a bit of bias working here.)

Others have tried to update what started as a homely dish, cozy comfort food on a winter’s night. Celebrity chefs from Tom Parker Bowles to Alton Brown and Emeril Lagasse have published their versions of the pie. Parker Bowles (yes, he is Camila’s son and therefore the stepson of King Charles) adds red onion and olive oil, both of which might be all right, but then he shows his culinary snobbishness by adding Thai chilies. Yet another chef with aspirations to greatness adds more discordant spices—rosemary, thyme, and cinnamon—and three glasses of red wine, stirred in a half glass at a time (and this is supposed to be an easy dish). Some recipes call for cubed meat, others ground; Martha Stewart avoids that dilemma by just calling for two lbs. beef (on her website, cubed is called for but the direction is omitted in her early printed versions of the recipe).

So what’s the average cook to do? I say, keep it simple and omit the chilies. One expert I read also said, “Choose on herb, and us it liberally.” So here’s the recipe I have used for my family for years. They seem to like it.

Shepherd’s pie

1-1/2 lbs. red potatoes

¾ c. shredded sharp cheddar, divided use

1 lb. lean ground beef or ground lamb

2 Tbsp. flour

4 c. frozen mixed vegetables—your choice; I prefer corn, green beans, and sweet peas)

¾ c. beef broth

2 Tbsp. ketchup

¼ c. shredded sharp cheddar

Heat oven to 375^o.

           Boil potatoes and mash with cream and butter (use a dollop of sour cream if you wish. Stir ½ cup grated cheddar into hot potatoes. Salt and pepper to taste.

Brown meat in skillet. Stir in flour and cook briefly. Add vegetables, ketchup, and salt and pepper to taste. Stir in beef broth and simmer until mixture thickens.

Spoon into a deep-dish pie plate or an 8 incj square baking dish. Cover with mashed potatoes. Bake 20 minutes. Sprinkle remaining ¼ cup cheddar over the top and bake another 3-4 minutes, until cheese melts and casserole is bubbly. Serve six, but only if they’re not hearty eaters.

A green salad is really good with this.

The moral of this story is a thought I find myself increasingly repeating in this column and in my own cooking: not all traditional recipes need to be updated. Some of those recipes from the fifties and sixties are jut fine the way they are. Not necessarily, the “salad” with hot dogs in jelled pickle juice, but maybe the pot roast I do with onion soup mix or the tuna noodle casserole I learned as a teenager. Please let me know if those recipes interest you.

Here's to old-fashioned, home cooking—American food, with all its varied international origins.