As it's St Patrick's Day here in Ireland I thought I'd have fun with my cottage pie! As you can see the topping is the Irish flag, made with riced broccoli, 'champ', and riced carrot. Champ is a traditional Irish food - mashed potatoes with finely sliced scallions (spring onions) mixed in, a popular and very tasty way of preparing the humble spud. I almost riced cauliflower for the white section on the topping, but that was clearly a moment of near-insanity as it really would be blasphemous to replace spuds with cauliflower on today of all days!!! I also served my meal with mini Irish soda farles shaped as a lucky Irish shamrock, which gave a nice touch on the finished dish :-)
If you fancy preparing any alternative Irish food on this day, please see my previous recipes here:
Irish Soda Farles with Homemade Baked Beans
Before getting to the recipe I will just take this moment to wish you all much happiness and prosperity on this day. Let's hope the luck of the Irish brings us all good fortune on Steemit too!
What you will need:
200g red lentils
2 cups cooked aduki beans*
2 red onions
6+ cloves garlic
1 jar tomato passata
1 tsp salt
2 tsp black pepper
1 tblsp rosemary
1 tblsp thyme
1 tblsp parsley
2 large potatoes (I use Irish rooster - rooster are great for mashing)
2 tsp butter
1/2 tsp nutmeg
3 scallions (spring onions)
2 large carrots
1 small head broccoli
60g khorasan flour
Pinch salt
1/4 tsp baking soda
1 tsp wheatgrass powder
60ml buttermilk (or regular milk with 1/2 tsp vinegar added and left to sour for 15 mins)
* I always have a stash of cooked-from-dried beans in little jars in the freezer, which is super handy if you do a lot of vegetarian cooking. Please see my previous post on the easiest way to batch cook beans. If you use tinned or carton beans, make sure to drain off the liquid and rinse thoroughly as preservatives are usually used and it's not good to ingest them.
Method:
Put the lentils in a saucepan and cover with cold water. Bring to the boil and simmer for about 10 minutes until softened (but not mushy).
Drain and set aside.
Half-mash the aduki beans - this gives a good 'meaty' texture.
Peel and dice the onion and garlic. Saute in a tablespoon of coconut oil on moderate heat until softened (about 5 minutes).
Add the lentils and aduki beans, and cook for a few minutes.
Add the tomato passata, salt, pepper, rosemary, thyme and parsley, and stir well. Continue cooking for a further 5 minutes until all the flavours are combined.
Transfer the mixture into a suitable oven-proof dish and level out.
Peel and dice the potatoes, and then steam for about 15-20 minutes until soft.
Mash the potatoes until creamy and lump-free, then add the butter and nutmeg and mix in.
Wash and finely slice the scallions. Add to the mashed potatoes and mix in well.
Peel and roughly chop the carrots, then mince using a food processor or manual veg chopper.
Roughly chop the broccoli, including the stem, and mince in a food processor/manual veg chopper.
Arrange the mashed potatoes, carrots and broccoli in sections to resemble the green-white-orange of the Irish flag.
Pop into the oven and bake at 190 degrees Celsius for about 30-40 minutes until piping hot and slightly crunchy on top.
To make the shamrock decorative Irish soda breads combine the flour, salt, baking soda and wheatgrass powder and mix well. Add the buttermilk and mix using your hand to form a firm dough. It should be quite a dry dough rather than wet.
Lightly dust the surface with wheatgrass powder, and roll the dough out to approx. 1/2 cm thick using a rolling pin.
Using a heart-shaped pastry cutter, cut out 4 hearts for the 'lucky shamrock'.
Place onto a lightly dusted baking tray and bake in a preheated oven at 200 degrees Celsius for 15 minutes until firm to touch.
To serve the dish, arrange the soda breads in a shamrock shape on top of the cottage pie.
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Many thanks.
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All photos in this post are my own original.
Logo kindly created for me by @papa-pepper