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Shepherd's Pie
Slice an onion and brown it in two tablespoonfuls of butter. Add two tablespoonfuls of flour and cook until frothy, then add salt and pepper and one pint of stock made from the bones and trimmings of whatever meat is at hand. After boiling a few minutes, add three cupfuls of meat, nicely trimmed, turn into a baking dish and cover with mashed potato. Brush the top with the yolk of an egg diluted with a little milk, brown in the oven and serve at once.
A classic use for leftover roast meat, written for cooks who kept bones on hand for stock. The method is sound; only a few quantities and cues need translating.
- The meat is already cookedThree cupfuls of "meat, nicely trimmed" points to cold roast from a previous meal — the recipe says only "whatever meat is at hand" — cut into small dice or coarsely chopped. Raw meat added at this stage will not cook through in the time it takes to brown the potato crust.
- StockA pint is 2 cups. Simmering the bones and trimmings gives the best result, but a good unsalted beef or lamb stock works; season at the end, since reduced stock and leftover roast both carry salt.
- "Cook until frothy"That is the roux stage — butter and flour bubbling and smelling nutty, roughly two to three minutes over medium heat. Add the stock gradually and whisk, or the sauce will be lumpy.
- Sauce consistencyTwo tablespoons of flour to a pint of stock gives a loose gravy. Boil it down until it coats a spoon; a watery filling will soak into the potato and the pie will not hold a cut edge.
- Mashed potato toppingFigure about 2 lb of potatoes, mashed stiff with butter and only a little milk. Soft, wet mash sinks into the gravy. Spread it to the edges of the dish so it seals the filling.
- OvenThe recipe gives no temperature; it assumes everything is hot going in and only wants colour on top. A hot oven, around 425°F, for 20 to 25 minutes should brown the egg wash; a few minutes under the broiler at the end sharpens it.
- Egg glazeOne yolk with a tablespoon of milk, brushed on thinly. It is what gives the burnished top, and it is worth the trouble.
- YieldA 2-quart dish, serving four to six.
Shepherd's pie belongs to the nineteenth-century economy of the roast: a large joint, cold slices the next day, and the last of it minced under potato later in the week. A potato topping gave cooks a crust that needed no flour, butter or pastry skill; the strict modern distinction between shepherd's pie (lamb) and cottage pie (beef) is a later tidying-up, and books of this period, including this one, use whatever meat is at hand.