I’ve got a Good Eats meal today and I’m super pumped for it. I jumped ahead a little but I happened to have just about all the main ingredients for a Shepherd’s Pie in my kitchen so in an effort to save a little money and eat what I have, I made Alton’s recipe from season 12 episode 6. This is a great episode in the theme of Sweeney Todd. Alton tells a story about an ‘ancestor’ and it’s basically that this great ancestor helps this woman who has a meat shop (Mrs. Lovett) create tastier pies while patrons of the barber shop manage to ‘leave’ every time Alton’s ancestor starts a new recipe and needs more ingredients. He doesn’t catch on at all and SPOILERS, ends up running away with the Mrs. Lovett character to America where he eventually disappears under mysterious circumstances. What a tale to tell just to show us how to make meat pies. This is class A educational cooking entertainment.
It’s dark early now guys - I’m just gonna blanket apologize for the poorly lit food photos for the rest of winter. Can’t wait for that spring golden hour light again in six months.
In any case, this is a great episode and I’m a fan of Shepherd’s Pie though it’s not a very popular dish going out and I maybe have made it once in my life. Veggies, ground meat, and potatoes - it’s pretty simple but it’s all the things I want and it’s pretty well rounded and simple to make. Alton manages to cook the whole thing in a large cast iron skillet but mine isn’t big enough so I had to do a couple pots and pour everything into a pie pan which was fine with me. I also cheated it and just used instant mashed potatoes on top to save time and use up the last package I have in my cupboard. The filling is a simple onion, carrot, corn, peas, and garlic mixture and then obviously ground meat. Alton uses lamb but of course it’s interchangeable.
Wegmans recently started selling “Impossible meat” which is a soy based substitute that looks and mimics the texture of ground meat. I obviously do eat meat but I love vegetables and I’ve been trying these meat substitute burgers when I go out just to see what they taste like. A little less red meat in my diet is also fine and I’m not gonna give up steak but switching out ground meat for impossible meat or beyond me is fine with me. I thought I’d give it a shot because people were really excited about Wegmans selling this even though beyond meat has been in stores for quite some time now. There was actually a full freezer case of Impossible meat at the local Wegmans here and I’m guessing they went all in with the product ordering and are hopeful to sell a lot. I decided to give it a shot and honestly I’m not disappointed at all. I added it into the recipe just like I would ground meat and it cooked and crumbled off the same way real meat would and the consistency was a perfect match. While it was cooking it smelled great and I was so excited to try it in the pie.
I’ll say I wasn’t disappointed at all. I’m so pumped for this dish now and honestly I feel like I don’t want to buy ground meat anymore, I’m just going to get Impossible meat as a substitute when I can because it tastes so good and I feel so much better about myself when I eat it. It’s not so greasy and it’s a little lighter but still filing especially in this dish of potatoes. It has a great flavor as it cooks and I’m so happy I gave it a shot. 10/10 would cook this again with impossible meat. Truly guys, give it all a shot.