Dear all,
I’d like to thank several of you for sending through a number of amazing, nutritional, simple and frugal recipes for the ‘Pandemic Pantry Global Community Cookbook Project’. All recipes and messages will be added to the FREE online cookbook which everyone can download for free.
When Leanne Spencer sent this recipe for Lentil Sheperd’s Pie through by e-mail last night, noticing that I did indeed have brown lentils in a storage jar in my ‘prepper pantry’, I couldn’t resist in baking this today for my dinner.
It tasted WONDERFUL, inexpensive to make, packed with protein and fibre and VERY comforting. Much needed in current days..
Thank you Leanne!
C xxx
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Hi Carolyn
Thank you for organising this.
This is the lentil version of a shepherd’s pie that I make regularly. My favourite thing about this recipe, is that it’s not prescriptive, you can use whichever veg you can get.
Regards,
Leanne Spencer
(Adelaide, Australia)
Lentil Shepherd’s Pie
Makes 6 generous serves
Ingredients
- 4 cups cooked brown lentils, drained
- 1 tblsp oil
- 1-2 chopped onions
- 2 cloves garlic, crushed
- 4 cups any minced, grated or finely chopped vegetables (eg mushrooms, carrots, sweet potato, celery, eggplant/aubergine, zucchini/courgette, capsicum/peppers – just use what you have)
- 400g tin crushed tomatoes or a jar of tomato pasta sauce
- 1 tsp beef flavoured stock powder or a tsp of vegemite/marmite
- 2 tsp dry mixed herbs
- 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
- 2 tblsp tomato paste
For the topping
- 3 large potatoes plus an equivalent amount of other suitable mashing veg (carrots, sweet potato, pumpkin, turnip, parsnip, celeriac, cauliflower etc)
- salt & pepper
- butter and a little milk
Method
– Peel the root veg and cut into large chunks. Simmer in salted water until just tender and then drain well. Add some pepper and butter and mash. If the mixture is dry add a little milk (this will depend on which veg you’ve used).
– Heat the oil in a large saucepan or stockpot and soften the onions. Add the minced vegetables, garlic and herbs and stir for a couple of minutes. Add the tomatoes, worchestershire sauce and stock powder and simmer for 30 minutes.
– Remove from the heat and add the lentils and tomato paste and stir through.
– Heat the oven to 180C.
– Pour the lentil mixture into a large rectangular casserole or roasting pan. Top with the mash and bake for 45 minutes, or until the top is nicely browned.
I like this served with green veg such as beans or swiss chard.
I make something very similar on a regular basis, so this has clearly stood the test of time! 😊
Can’t beat a potato topped pie! 🙂 xxxx
Ooooh that looks good. I’d best go dig up some potatoes!
Madeleine
It was lovely!!! Wish I was digging up potatoes! Have you got a veggie garden? xxx
This seems very tomatoey for a shepherds pie?
Yes and absolutely delicious! Sent through from a lovely lady in Australia for the community cookbook of recipes crested by people using ingredients from their store cupboard Xxxx C
Maybe a potato topped pie might have made the name less confusing for some people as a Shepherd’s Pie would have lamb & a Cottage Pie would have beef, both with ‘meaty’ gravy whereas a lentil or a vegetable pie could have a tomato, cheese or just a white sauce with the filling. Regardless of the confusion the recipe is a simple one that has stood the test of time.
I make a similar filling with a lentil curry and potato top, but lets face it a potato topped pie can be filled with whatever you have to hand or just left overs from a previous meal. It wouldn’t be the first time the remains of a Sunday lunch were chopped up & combined with gravy to be topped with mash and served up another day. Yet another left overs necessity that ‘just happens’ rather than a hard & fast recipe, certainly better than binning left overs.
If you don’t like the tomato in the sauce try cheese sauce, a plain white sauce or whatever you feel goes best with the lentils.
I’ve been looking at this recipe for ages and finally had everything at hand to make it. Delicious! I had never mashed parsnips with potato before. Lovely! I served it with a spinach salad. A wonderful way to get more legumes into our diet. Thank you.
Judy
Saskatchewan, Canada
I don’t know if there is a name for mash & parsnip but in Scotland we serve ‘Çlapshot’, which is a mixture of mash & turnip, which is sometimes called swede in some recipes. Usually swede is yellow fleshed whereas the white fleshed turnip varieties (such as butterball) have a superior flavour and texture.