We're gonna make the most delicious veggie shepherd's pie. This is in fact vegan, really
really good, but this is one of many recipes that I'm going to be celebrating across the whole
month. I've done a meal planner for you guys which spans a whole month of budget-friendly recipes.
This is going to be good on the planet, it's going to be good on your wallet, and it's gonna be good
in your tummy right, it's gonna be delicious. No compromise happening here! So let's get cooking.
We're going to go in with some nice olive oil, about two tablespoons goes in right, we'll put
it onto a medium heat. I'm going to start the flavour story with a herb. To use a nice little
pile of rosemary in this dish is a good trigger for big flavour. Roughly chop the rosemary.
So the rosemary goes in. As you get a little bit of a fry-on there, let's add some garlic. So we're
now going to add the first veggies, just you know standard mushrooms, button mushrooms, little kind
of brown mushrooms, portobello mushrooms, whatever you can get your hand on. You can break these up
like that. Also dried mushrooms are a massive like, trick if you're veggie-vegan and you're
craving that depth of flavour that you can easily access from meat. So mushrooms I put in first,
season a little bit now to get that seasoning in to the veggies. You can go quite heavy on
the pepper. On the story of spices, that is about a tablespoon of ground coriander goes in,
delicious. Okay, little cheat a little hack, it's not cheaper actually but it's a good conversation
starter. In the supermarket you have got frozen chopped veg. So convenience here what we have
here is celery, carrots, onions right, so a whole bag goes in. It's frozen, you can take a handful.
This is a really brilliant product to have in your freezer, I'm going to turn the heat up now.
And I want to let this fry off for about 5 minutes to concentrate the flavours, get them golden and
get them caramelised. Most of the time those frozen bags of chopped veg are more expensive
than buying the raw stuff but let's look at the upside. It's frozen, you can take a little bit or
use the whole lot. it's already chopped for you. It's blended as a mix which is kind of convenient,
and there's no waste. I'm taking this down, and it's currently quite moist in here but
what's nice is all the flavours are mixing around. We're getting darker guys, we're getting darker.
That's what we want. So this has been frying for like 15 minutes
and you'll notice that the volume has gone down. Look at that! Already smells good. Okay so,
when doing a beautiful ragu, bolognese, you know mincemeat dish, you know using
wine or beer is quite common. There are eggs used in the fining process of red wine okay,
so have a look on the back of the label you know to make sure is it vegan or not vegan? So go in
with a good glass. Cheers. So can you see how we've now gone back in seconds to a dry pan,
okay? At this point now I add our proteins in the form of lentils,
and then I'll go in with tinned chickpeas. So once we've done that what we need is a little
bit of stock, now you can buy veggie stock right, but I just want to give you like a little cheat
on how you can make your own. Just boil a kettle and use... this is porcini but I really genuinely
do use dried mushrooms. You just put a little handful like that in right, that's all you need.
The flavour is phenomenal. Also if you wanted to pep up some flavour like you can cheat with
a little bit of Marmite, just a little spoon like that goes in. Just a little thimble of soya sauce.
The other one is miso, amazing flavour. So these are all really good tips. Then if you've got any
herbs lying around you know you can put those in right, but essentially we're making a cup of tea,
it's an infusion. You know if you're using carrots and you've got peel you know, right you
can still you know be clever about it. This will taste phenomenal. So let's just move it about.
It's good! How much effort was that? There's one last ingredient, you could use tomato puree you
could use tinned tomatoes. I'm using just a little clutch you know, 10 or 12 sun-dried tomatoes.
Sunshine, optimism, hope, little pops of sweetness, mm! You know as we add our stock now
this is essentially the equivalent of our mincemeat, our bolognese-esque type ragu.
And the mushrooms can go in by the way. Not the herbs. The little masher, just gently crush just
to lose you know that blatant shape of the chickpea. Okay, so we're done. Turn it off.
Normally at home I would just fill this pan with mashed potato now, but I do want to make it a
bit more fancy just because you know... we're making a cooking show. It's a little bit wetter
than you would think but remember it's going to carry on baking in the oven and I do want
it to kind of be blippy and gorgeous, so into that dish. I'm going to go on top
with my mashed potato, just boiled, mashed. Instead of butter, nice extra virgin olive oil and
salt and pepper, a little bit of nutmeg is really nice. You can make it really flat if you want but
I quite like it rustic like this, look at that. That's basically our kilo and a half of potatoes.
Last but not least before I pop it in the oven I'm going to put a little oil over
the top of the potatoes and purposefully use a different herb, thyme. If you put in
you know, 3 or 4 tablespoons of oil like that right and get in there like this,
and then squeeze it through. That will guarantee you flavour but a nice crispy finish. That's a
really simple way of making a definitively convincing herb oil. In the oven it goes now
for about half an hour, 40 minutes, until golden, blipping and delicious. So in we go. Delish.
Okay, so, this beautiful veggie shepherd's pie has had 35 minutes. Oh, look at that!
Absolutely beautiful. What I loved about this, can you see here...
Look at that! So we've got that incredible gravy blipping away here, cooking into the potatoes
giving you soggy tasty potatoes. We've got the crispy potatoes on top, little gnarly crispy
bits here look at that look, sticky bits! Like really really nice, like almost the best bits.
Yum! So that I would treat like a normal shepherd's pie. Gorgeous. Some lovely seasonal
greens that you can just toss with a little bit of olive oil. So let's go in for the kill,
come on let's get in there, into the heart and soul of this beautiful veggie shepherd's pie.
Look at that. You can see this is going to feed nicely, like a big old group of people.
Look at that! Serve this with whatever lovely sort of steamed or boiled veggies you can get
your hands on. I've just got a little bit of kale here. Mustard and brown sauce, really really nice.
Not that it's traditional but um a little bit of ketchup as well is definitely the done thing
in our house. Enough yapping. Time. Time to have a little taste, and let's get in there.
Mm! Yummy texture. First thing the texture it is
very similar to what you'd get in a typical meat sort of stew ragu. Mm!
Experimenting, having fun, and being open-minded. So there you go! Happy cooking, that's delicious.
It's really good!