Shepherd's Pie

This was a family favorite and my father, especially, enjoyed it. I, too, loved this, and have duplicated the flavor RARELY because lamb is not something that is easy to find in the grocery stores, or even from the butchers in the mid-West. You see, true Shepherd's Pie has to be made with lamb -- thus the name -- shepherds herd sheep (lamb) not beef, which (the beef variety) is what you will find in most restaurants/diners/cafes that have this dish.

My mom's recipe was really very simple. And, once again, it was made with leftovers. Maybe I should rename this BLOG Runnemede Left Overs because it seems that so many of the dishes I've been writing about were made from left overs. Mom never threw anything away!

About once a month mom would buy a leg of lamb or a shoulder lamb roast. This roast was the basis of our weekend meals. Saturday night we feasted on the fresh roasted product, Sunday, we ate the left overs. We always had some sort of roast on Saturday night. I think maybe mom bought that first and then we ate on what was left the rest of the week. My father NEEDED that roast and the accompaniments that went with it.

Well, on Saturday night, after the dishes were cleared from the table and soaking in the sink (no dishwashers other than me or my mom back then) she would get out the old meat grinder and attached it to the table and start grinding up the left over lamb. She should peel the potatoes and put them in water in the refrigerator, and store the ground lamb in a casserole dish mixed with the left over gravy (also in the fridge) until she needed it for Sunday supper (which was after church). We always had out "big" Sunday meal right after church, or as soon as mom could get it ready, along with her hungry helpers.

So, out came the ground lamb and gravy mix. The potatoes were put on the stove to boil and become mushy for mashing. After mom whipped up those potatoes she would top the lamb/gravy mix with the potatoes and then put the casserole in the oven at 450 degrees for 15 minutes. That gave the potatoes a nice tan to brown crust -- the peaks of the mashed potatoes got browner than the valleys.

Served as sides with the Shepherd's Pie were peas, pickled beets, and dessert which was usually some sort of boxed cake made the night before and iced with an orange juice/powdered sugar icing. Or if mom was real ambitious, she'd make a big bowl of jello with some sort of fresh fruit in it.

What makes my mother's shepherd's pie so good is the way she made her lamb roast. I've had lamb roast made by people who would invite us over for dinner (others who lived in Runnemede) but none was as good as my mom's, and I think that's because her lamb was saturated with garlic and she didn't cook it to death. Even then she knew that a medium well lamb was cooked just perfect, made the best gravy, and was easiest to chew.

Thanks mom for giving me a great dish to remember you by.

NOTE: Since we didn't have lamb when my children were growing up, I substituted left over roast beef, also ground up in a meat grinder, and topped with mashed potatoes. Not quite the same, sorry to say.

ttfn