What to Cook for Dinner Tonight
“Mary had a little lamb
Its fleece was white as snow.
Mary baked it in a pie
And cooked it, nice and slow.”
Yeah, that’s not how that goes.
But it’s not unrealistic. Shepherd’s pie is as English as afternoon tea, and as popular a dish as any ever cooked on that side of the pond. So it’s not out of the question for Mary to have gotten a mite peckish and, um, invited her lamb in for dinner.
Here on this side of the Atlantic, we tend to make what is properly called a “cottage pie” – that is, the same kind of dish, but prepared with beef instead of lamb. It’s savory, it’s filling, and it’s an ancient comfort food that is the ideal thing to cook for dinner on a cool fall evening.
Like meat loaf, cottage pie (and other meat pies) grew out of a desire to stretch a family’s portion of protein into one more meal. Even a small bit of ground beef mixed into a pie filling added some savory flavor and energy-providing fat and amino acids to a meal. Meat pies were the province of the poor and the hard-working, to whom fat was a life-giver, not a diet-buster.
Of course, most of us hard-working folks these days labor along behind a desk, so we don’t need one more extra layer of blubber to keep us warm through the winter. However, there are ways to make this dish a little bit healthier than its fattier incarnations.
First off, cottage pie is made with ground beef. Even if you use a super-lean meat, you should rinse your beef somewhere in the cooking process. Do this with care, because what you’re rinsing off is burning-hot grease, but don’t skip this step. Once the meat is done browning but isn’t overdone:
1. Clean out that sink and place a large colander into it. Grab an empty coffee can (or whatever holds your old bacon grease) and place it close to the sink.
2. Take the meat off the heat. Then make absolutely certain there’s a clear path between you and the garbage disposal. No pets, no kids, no trash cans – nothing between you and the sink.
3. Make one more check for obstacles, then pick up the pan, move straight to the sink, and gently pour the grease out of the pan into the coffee can, then pour the meat into the colander.
4. Rinse the meat with hot water (after letting the water run, away from the meat, for a few minutes to clear the pipes of any leftover grease.) This serves two purposes: First, it keeps the meat from getting too cold. Second, it keeps the grease from solidifying and helps it run down the drain instead of immediately becoming a clog.
5. Put the meat back in the pan, and then run the disposal.
6. Move on to the next step in the recipe (adding vegetables, spices and other cook-ins.)
Vegetables are the next secret health ingredient for this dish. Most recipes do call for some vegetables, anyway. But we’re talking about additional vegetables – stealth vegetables.
Grate about a half-a-cup each of carrots and zucchini, then add into your meat as you are adding in sauce and spices. Let the carrots and zucchini cook with the meat. When they’re done, you won’t be able to taste them, but they’ll help fill out the pie (and fill you up), meaning you’ll eat less meat and consume fewer calories.
There are even ways to bring the fat level down in the delicious mashed-potato topping (an integral part of this dish.) Ignore the mashed potato recipe that comes with your cottage or shepherd’s pie recipe – look for a potato recipe that uses broth for flavor, does NOT include things like cream cheese, heavy cream or loads of butter, and be sure not to make your potatoes too thin OR two thick – go for a happy medium that can be baked without drying out but won’t liquefy and run into your meat mix.
Try out our cottage pie recipe here, or add one to our database of recipes.
Happy eating!
