‘Ello you lot, this is Keef Cooks, I'm Keef, and today I'm going to do something that
might surprise you. Actually it won't because you've read the title and the
thumbnail already so you know it's going to be vegan shepherd's cottage pie.
[ MUSIC ]
I'm doing this because it was requested by Leo, and also he's asked for a shoutout for his
girlfriend Emma Dawkins and he says they have both watched every video I've ever made. I think that's
possibly unlikely but well, well done, congratulations! All right most of you probably know I'm not a big
fan of vegetarian food and that because I like my meat. But Mrs Keef Cooks would like
to be a vegetarian when she grows up so we'll just do this to appease her a little bit.
And yeah also some of you will complain about it being called vegan-something-meaty.
And I'm not responsible for that so just y’know, leave it alone. It is what it is.
If you enjoy this video press like, subscribe. And without further ado let's do it!
Okay a lot of recipes for this would use textured vegetable protein as a
meat substitute in the sauce which defeats the whole object. Apart from it not being a realistic
alternative to mince, or not convincing one, it just seems wrong. So my sauce will be made from
mostly mushrooms, some lentils and some pearl barley and other stuff.
So I've got 115 grams of chestnut mushrooms, 115 grams of button mushrooms,
90 grams of red lentils, 90 grams of pearl barley, a medium onion, a small carrot. I'll also have
some frozen peas and a handful of flat leaf parsley, salt and pepper to taste, and a teaspoon
or two of yeast extract. And some tomato puree and Hendo's sauce - if you don't live in Yorkshire
you will have a hard time getting this so what you want to look for is something like Worcester sauce
but make sure it's vegan approved because most Worcester sauce will contain either anchovies or
fish sauce and both of those are obviously not veganish so you can't have them. The lentils, I'm
using orange ones. They don't need to be soaked but I have rinsed them. Also I've rinsed the pearl
barley. If you've got green or puy lentils they take longer to cook - 15 minutes more than this,
so 40 minutes and they would benefit probably from a couple of hours soaking beforehand.
Now I'm going to cook the barley separately just so I know that it's really properly cooked.
Depending on its age it can take longer than you expect. I'm thinking this will take 25 minutes.
So I'll just top it up with, well, twice as much water as I have barley. Whack that on the stove,
bring it to the boil and simmer it for 25 minutes.
[ MUSHROOM CHOPPING SOUNDS ]
So I've chopped the button mushrooms quite small,
and I'll chop up the chestnut mushrooms but I'm going to cut these ones
bigger so we get a sort of variation in texture. Kind of like that.
[ MORE MUSHROOM CHOPPING SOUNDS ]
Now I'm going to top and tail, peel and chop the onion.
[ ONION CHOPPING SOUNDS ]
I don't know what's wrong with my table thing today, it’s
pretty wobbly. And we'll dice the carrot.
[ CARROT DICING SOUNDS ]
Now I'm going to cook the mushrooms in some oil for maybe 10 minutes,
basically until all of the moisture has been released and disappeared and evaporated.
Just keep an eye on that, keep stirring it as and when required.
So now we take mushrooms out of the pan,
add a bit more oil.
When that's heated up we'll put the onions in and we want those to cook
for about five minutes and a little bit of browning on the edge is
acceptable. Then we add the diced carrots and let those cook for a few minutes
and then if I had any vegetable stock
I would pour that in. You want about half a litre of liquid. I'm just going to use some water
and we'll test the barley for doneness and drain it and add it to that pan with the lentils.
And don't forget to put the mushrooms back in.
Now that's been simmering away for 5-10 minutes I've added some more water. I'm going to add this
amount of petits pois - little frozen peas - and then two teaspoons of yeast extract.
A good sploosh of Hendo’s or whatever Worcester sauce equivalent
or substitute you're using - if you are using,
it's not actually critical that you have this - and some tomato puree. Whizz those together
give it a taste and then we'll let it simmer away for about half an hour until everything is cooked.
While the sauce is bubbling away I'm going to do my potatoes so
peeling these. Let's use a peeler! So we'll cut them into equal sized chunks,
pop them into a pot of salted water, bring it to the boil and simmer it for about 10-15 minutes
until the potatoes are tender. So I've chopped the parsley and I've put most of it into the sauce,
just saving a bit for garnish. I've also added some salt and I'll add some pepper
and we'll give it a taste if it's okay that'll be done for now.
So we'll take it off the heat and let it cool down until we need it later.
Meanwhile I reckon the spuds are cooked so we'll mash those. Now I'm going to mash the potatoes and
I actually don't think I've got enough there so I've got another spud cooking away behind me.
So one of the things that I always put in mashed potato is butter and the other one is milk, both of
which are not allowed in vegan stuff so I've got some olive spread which is suitable for
vegans and I've got this oat milk which, I tasted it, it's like homeopathic porridge.
It's very very faintly porridge flavoured. I also use a bit of salt and some white pepper.
And the good old potato ricer - I'll put a link down below if you want to buy one of these from
Amazon and I'll get a penny if you do.
Okay let's taste that...
More salt. I want to put more milk in but I don't
I don't want to put that in because you can actually taste that it's not...
it's not proper milk. Right I've got my fan/convection oven heating to 180 degrees Celsius and that's
200 for a conventional one and gas on the screen. So now I've got my chilled sauce
I'm going to spread the mashed potato in a layer
and you want to make sure it goes right to the edges, no gaps and as even as you can.
So there we go, nice smooth layer of potato. I'm just going to
make a pattern on the top with a big fork. You can decorate the top any way you like doing
something it is to create ridges that will catch the heat and brown somewhat. And a few dabs of
the vegan margarine stuff. And just scatter some parsley over there as well.
Okay, and that'll go in the oven for 20 to 25 minutes until it's kind of golden and crunchy on the top.
“And now it's taste test time with Mrs Keef Cooks!” [ CHEERING ]
“AKA Her Upstairs." "But you're not."
"I'm not." "No there you go."
"Cottage pie?" "Vegan."
"Ooh aye." "Aye, vegan pie, it's got a vegan in it ."
"Oh it's got the right colour combo."
"Hmm hmm."
"Ooh yeah mm-hmm. Oh I think you've gone a tad overboard with the salt what do you think?"
"Because I actually like vegetarian food - Keef’s not keen he always feels deprived don't you?”
“No no.”
“He lies.”
“I've got a bacon butty in the fridge.”
"You get such really good flavours from the herbs and the spices but yeah..."
"Well I was trying to replicate y;know, a meaty base, I mean a meaty sauce."
"Right." "So there's quite a lot of yeast extract in it which is quite salty."
"Yeah because it doesn't taste as if it's been over salted as such but you're getting that salt hit in the back of your mouth yeah."
"Okay yeah, I like that. It needs some peas and it needs some actual sauce, I think."
"I mean it's wet enough but I like..." I should have made some some vegan gravy."
"Yeah I mean I've got vegetable stock cubes haven't I?" "I thought you had...well I don't"
"know where you stashed them. In there." "In the secret vegetable cupboard so Keef doesn't have to see"
"these things. There are pulses in there, there are nuts, there's dried fruit. It's all right, you"
"could do a tagine. Somebody wanted you to do a tagine, didn't they?"
"Yes I'm doing it. I've got some preserved lemons on the go and they take two weeks...all right, okay."
"That's it. That's quite good, make it! So thanks for watching and see you next time."
[ MUSIC ]