I've always loved St. Patrick's Day. I don't rightly know why, except when I was quite small, I got very attached to Irish history and culture. There was something there I always resonated with, and besides, it's pretty fucking cool as far as a nation's holidays go, isn't it?
From Dublin, a couple of years back.
So I try to always celebrate it in little ways. Typically with my brother, as he is himself a Patrick, and this year's no exception. It's just worth it, isn't it. Any excuse to celebrate that we're alive and together, so there's a little party going on tonight, and I like to go all out. I told you, big Irish fan. I was fifteen or something, making boxty and everyone was kind enough to pretend it didn't come out burnt and greasy. Thankfully, I've gotten a bit better around ovens.
For this year, I went with shepherd's pie, a classic. I also made a couple of desserts, but I'll tell you about them later. I wanna see how they turned out first. To be fair, I haven't tasted the pie yet, either. But it's mince and mash, how off can you go? And I tasted them separate, so scout's honor, it's good. Well, I'm not a scout, but some of the people coming tonight are, so that counts, surely.
Aaaanyway. Le food. The trouble with cooking Irish food for non-Irish people is there's a lot of changes required. Like leave out all the green stuff. Or beans, if there's beans. Or leek. Whatever the fuck that is. Basically just give me raw meat.
I figure I can work with that. Saves me time. So this recipe's real simple.
What you'll need (for the meat side):
- Bit of oil or grease. Suppose butter could work in a pinch, though I think the food would burn. I went with olive oil myself, a couple of tablespoons should do you fine;
- One onion;
- Few carrots (three medium-sized ones sounds okay);
- 500 g mince - looking at it now, maybe you could go up to 750 or even 1kg if you're serving a lot of people or making a big dish. Mine wasn't, though still there's a lot more potato than underside. Which is supposed to happen, I guess, but still. Adjust as you please. Personally, I'm a fan of beef (as is tradition), but not everyone is, so I went with pork instead;
- Bit of tomato sauce or puree;
- Broth (again, you're supposed to use beef broth, but I couldn't find any to buy, and I made some myself, also using pork, as that was what was handy. I'm also getting over a bit of a cold, so that suited me fine);
- Worcestershire sauce.
So what you want to do is heat up your frying liquid of choice in a large non-stick pan. Then add the carrots and onion finely chopped, and fry over low-medium fire for a few minutes. Don't worry if those damn carrots aren't cooked through, you're just looking to soften them a bit here. The onions are a good one to watch, as they turn glassy when it's time to move on to the next step.
Hey. It's a poor, backwards Commie country (now back for an encore, if you've been following local politics). We get excited about things like "Worcestershire sauce"
Next step is, predictably, add the mince, and swivel it around until it's uniformly brown. You may want to turn up the fire here a bit, though watch it as it's easy to burn the meat over high heat. Once the meat is a nice cooked brown, add a splash of Worcestershire sauce (a spoonful or two), and a bit of tomato sauce. I say a bit because I think you'll generally know when it's uniformly mixed in, but not so much that everything else is swimming in it. As if you're actually going to take out a tablespoon and measure. Come on.
Right, let that sit for 3 minutes, then add the broth. You want at least 500 ml of broth. I used about a bowl-ful as you can see, and ended up having to add a bit of water and tomato sauce towards the end, so it wouldn't burn. So if you can use more broth, use more.
Cover and let simmer for 45 minutes. When you're about 25-30 minutes in, uncover, but keep an eye on it - you don't want it to burn.
What you'll need for the potatoes
You don't really need me to teach you to make mashed potatoes, though, do you? About a kg of potatoes, peeled and sliced (not too thin), boiled till soft, then mashed together with a bit of milk (almond, all that was in the house), and butter. I also added rosemary, beside the obvious salt and pepper, and grated parmesan, but you don't have to.
Once both meat and potatoes are done, just layer the potatoes over the meat inside an oven-resistant dish, and bake for another 20 minutes or so (175C). I'm gonna do that later on, and add grated cheese. Fuck it. All the cheese. over it to give it a finish. I know the little fork-crest look is how it's supposed to look, but I like a brown, forgot-in-the-oven look.
Anyway. Here's to hoping no one is poisoned.
Do you like St Patrick's Day, or celebrate? If so how? :)
