Making Traditional Shepherds Pie

Series Summary

Shepherds pie, cottage pie, cowboy pie: whatever you want to call it (we called it “mush” at my house), this tasty combination of meat, vegetables, and potatoes was created by America’s favorite transatlantic neighbors, the British. Historically, shepherd’s pie actually calls for lamb as a meat ingredient, but often, ground beef is used as a substitute. This casserole-type dish was probably created as an inventive way to reuse leftovers, and it still stands up today as a cheap and easy dinner meal any night of the week.

So, now you know a little bit about shepherd’s pie, but you still don’t know how to make it, you say. Well, follow along as expert Rich Buccola takes you on a step-by-step journey into the depths of your refrigerator. Learn the ingredients and utensils you need to make cottage pie, how to brown the meat, cut the vegetables, shred the cheese, layer the ingredients in a casserole dish, how to cook it in the oven, and finally how to enjoy it! Rich will even give you a handy tip on how to store the leftovers…should there be any.

Video Transcript

"Hi! I'm Richard Buccola here in New York City and today on behalf of Expert Village, I am going to show you how to make some Shepherds Pie. You have leftover mashed potatoes maybe in your refrigerator. You have leftover peas and carrots or just frozen peas and carrots. You've got some corn. You have some things that you want to put it all together. Let me tell you about Shepherds Pie. It is a great dish, inexpensive and what's great is you take all your little leftover that you have in your frig. You whip them together, put them in the oven, make it real nice and it comes out and you just made dinner for everybody with all of your stuff that you might have thrown away because it was just sitting in your refrigerator. It's a great great dish because it could working with anything. If you don't have corn, you could use carrots. If you don't have green beans, you can use peas. You know you have broccoli. Any kind of vegetables is good. Here is how I am going to make it today and when I come back I am going to show you exactly how I am going to make it here on Expert Village. I've got to remind everybody that this is a little spiced up edition to my Shepherd's Pie because I've got my friend Rory Dailey at Gilbey's Club I have to correct that. I have to say it right now and everyone will get the joke and the story as far as that one goes. But this is Rory Dailey's super duper Shepherd's Pie. It's a great great dish. Come back and try it. "