Vegan Shepard's Pie. OK that sounds a little ridiculous I am willing to admit. Shepards pie without meat? WELL believe it or not LENTILS are the solution. Mushroom too, but mostly lentils. The best thing about this recipe is that if you have lentils, onions and potatoes you can pretty much throw in whatever other vegetables you want and the pie will taste fantastic. The reason it works is because lentils have a fairly earthy, hearty flavor by themselves but when you cook them with the seasonings in this recipe they just explode with flavor and bring the rest of the dish along with them.
I'm going to write down my IDEAL Shepard's Pie recipe but honestly I don't know if I've ever actually had all of these ingredients on hand and that's OK. Want to use celery instead of carrots? No problem. No mushrooms? It's all good. Need to use up some turnips or sweet potato? Go for it. The foundation of this dish is so solid you can really go nuts with substitutions or even take some stuff out and it will still taste great. The one thing you do need (and if you're vegan you probably already have some) is nutritional yeast. It's one of those ingredients like shrimp paste or anchovies that tastes terrible by itself but brings out incredible flavors in other foods and you really need it for this recipe. I THINK you could probably replace it with miso paste or marmite if you absolutely had to but I've never tried it.
I cooked the Shepard's Pie in a dutch oven but if you don't have one you can do all the cooking in a pot and then transfer the mixture to a deep baking dish before you layer on the potatoes.
I'm missing a few things from this picture and again, the recipe I'm writing down is the idealized version of what I actually cooked. Also, yes, baby carrots I know - they were from a party and I'm using them up DON'T JUDGE ME. There's wild rice in the picture because I thought I wouldn't have enough lentils but I ended up not using it.
The Filling
3 carrots chopped
1 large onion chopped
1 package button mushrooms chopped
1 cup peas (fresh or frozen)
3 tbsp soy sauce
1.5 cups dry lentils
3/4 cup nutritional yeast (you can buy this from MOM's or Whole Foods)
splash of red wine
3 cups vegetable stock
4 cloves garlic pureed (either chop very finely or use a garlic press)
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp thyme
1 tsp rosemary
2 tbsp neutral oil
2 tbsp tomato paste
Mashed Potato Topping
3 large potatoes peeled
4 tbsp earth balance
1/2 cup soy milk (UNSWEETENED)
1. First you want to peel those potatoes and boil them. Cut them so no pieces are larger than a fist and boil them about 40 minutes, with no lid. Conventional wisdom is that the potatoes are done when they slide off a fork when pierced but just to be clear they have to be mushy all the way through or else you'll get hard bits in your mashed potatoes. So they have to REALLY slide off your fork there should be no resistance.
2. While the potatoes are boiling chop your onions, carrots and mushrooms and fry your onions and carrots in the dutch oven on medium high heat with the oil.
Fry them till the onions are translucent you start to get some caramelization on the bottom of the pan, about 8 minutes. At that point splash some wine in there and rub the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon to mix the caramelized stuff in with the wine then put your garlic and mushrooms in.
3. Fry the mushrooms for a few minutes then add your spices, soy sauce and tomato paste. Stir that a minute then add your lentils and peas.
Wait another minute then add the vegetable stock and nutritional yeast, bring to a boil then cover and change heat to low. Wait 20 minutes.
4. Those potatoes should be done soon so when they are get them out of the water, put them in a large bowl and add the butter and soy milk. Mash them with a fork until they are creamy and fluffy, add more milk/earth balance if you need to. Add salt and pepper to taste. It's hard for me at this point not to just eat those mashed potatoes because I'm normally starving but just hold on you're almost there.
5. After 20 minutes of cooking in the dutch oven the lentils should be done so take a look. Set your oven to broil. There will probably be a bit of excess liquid so I like to let that cook down a bit until the filling is dry enough to easily hold the mashed potatoes on top. Spread your mashed potatoes on top of the filling then get a fork and make some ridges in the potatoes. Throw that in the oven until the potatoes get a bit crispy AND YOU'RE DONE. In the picture I garnished with some fresh rosemary I had lying around and also added fresh chopped rosemary to the mashed potatoes which was pretty tasty.
This would be more aptly named SAVORY VEGAN PIE but Shepard's Pie sounds better. The combination of soy sauce, tomato paste and nutritional yeast makes this incredibly rich, balanced gravy that all the vegetable and lentils cook in and soak up. I'm a huge fan of this recipe because of how malleable it is and also how much fun it is to cook and then eat on a cold winter day. Questions or comments? Let me know at arlingtonhomecook@gmail.com and I'll post them.
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