Mmm, Pie Volume II
And then we have the meat pie, an example of which is seen at left. Disregard the blurriness of the picture and notice the fluffy potatoes which were browned on top of a slow-cooked, steamy pile of vegetables and meat.
As the weather cools – or rather, colds – quite rapidly, we turn again and again to our Slow Food cookbook for comfort food and inner warmth. We consumed several mountain-ed plates of Cottage Pie– even the name invokes comfort. What was basically a simple ground beef and veggie stew with smashed tatties on the roof turned out to be a new favourite.
Beef in its ground form is not generally something I yearn for due to years of being subjected ground beef cooked with cream of mushroom soup and served in front of The Muppet Show, but this dish went a long way towards redeeming its reputation. I suspect that anything that employs the title of “beef pie” can easily slide into Disgust-dom but this version didn’t follow that path; it was moist like a casserole, with veggies that still retained some of their original flavours and crunch (i.e. carrots) and the potatoes made a perfect crust with which to soak up any lingering gravy. I guess that’s what the hour in the oven did to finish the dish: it gravified the filling.
Much like Mmmm, Pie (Volume I), we made one big pie and then a couple of little ones for leftovers and this trick is genius; brought some in to work the next day and was thinking about it all morning. Marc’s mini-pie never made it to work.