Pork Shepard's Pie

I feel confident stating we've all had experiences with Sheppard's Pie, that layered concoction of ground beef, mixed veggies, and mashed potatoes.  At its core, it's sort of amazing.  All the necessary food groups in a single dish, so if you are in a rush or not someone who likes getting crazy in the kitchen then it's perfect.  Brown some meat, move it into a 9x13, throw a bag or two of frozen mixed vegetables on top, finish with mashed potatoes.  I would even argue it's better to use the dehydrated flakes for this dish, which makes life that much simpler.  Pop it in the oven and 30 minutes later you have dinner. 

Most would say you shouldn't mess with perfection. So why mess with the basic Sheppard's Pie?  Well...because I can.  I had roasted a pork shoulder, which is maybe not the wisest choice when you are cooking for one.  You end up with POUNDS of pork in the fridge.  At that point you need to get creative with ways to use up a lot at once.  I stood in the middle of my kitchen and did a 360, evaluating everything I already had at my disposal... pork, about 3 pounds of potatoes, and an assortment of frozen and fresh vegetables....hmmmm.

It sounds like I have at least two thirds of a Sheppard's Pie, but can you really make it with pork as opposed to beef?  Do I dare?  I ask myself this as I stare at a mountain of pork.  Oh do I ever dare!

 

Pork Sheppard's Pie

 

Ingredients:

 

4 c. cooked pork shoulder - diced

4 Tbsp butter
3 carrots - diced

1 medium onion - diced

2 celery stalks - diced

1/4 c. flour

2 c. chicken stock
1 c. frozen mixed vegetables
3 lbs. Russet potatoes
1/2 c. sour cream
Milk and butter as needed for potatoes

Directions:

In are large skillet, melt butter and saute onions over medium heat until softened, about 7 minutes.  Add carrots and celery, saute for an additional 7 minutes.

Add the flour and mix until you have that pasty brown concoction in your pan. Add the stock and mix until that paste is dissolved.  Add the pork and simmer until thickened, about 10 minutes.

When ready, transfer to a 9 x 13 casserole dish.  Shake the cup of frozen vegetables over the top.  Now, we switch to the mashed potatoes.  Peel and quarter the potatoes. Boil until they are tender, drain, and put back in pot.  Add milk, butter, and sour cream then mash together.  You will have a lot of mashed potatoes.

At this point you could just dump all of the mashed potatoes on top of everything else in the casserole dish then pat down with the back of a spoon.  However, I'm a rather particular individual.  I wanted an even layer and I didn't want to get the frozen veggies mixed into the potatoes.  Therefore, I went the uber fussy route.  I placed spoonfuls of potatoes down, one at a time, and gently created a thin layer of potatoes.  Then I dumped the remaining potatoes on top and patted it all down to create a flat top.  I told you, I'm particular.... with a dash of fussy.

When you are ready, pop this bad boy into an oven that has been heated to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.  Bake for 30 minutes. 

Hungry yet?


Turkey Tetrazzini

Cooking always seems to be a test of my patience.  I want to turn up the heat and have my onions cooked already!  But this is counterproductive to the end goal.  You want tender and translucent not crispy and fried.  Things start to bubble too much, turn down the heat.  Don't think "nah, it'll be fine."  That's when things burn and your special birthday dinner home cooked meal turns into special birthday Chinese take-out.

I blame my lack of patience when cooking on my follow-through issues.  I have awesome ideas and always put in a lot of energy at the start.  It's the seeing it through to the end with that same level of enthusiasm that remains an elusive devil.  Looking around my living room, I count 5 unfinished craft projects.  Some of them are several years old...I am awful! 

With cooking though, you can't really pull the "oh I'm bored, let's move on to something else and then go back to this" excuse.  Probably because you'd end up starving or living on a lot of take-out. Though, maybe you live in an area with a lot of really amazing take-out, so I won't judge.  My downfall?  Less than a mile from my apartment and perfectly situated on the drive home is a grocery store with some of the best prepared foods I have ever eaten.  So, I remind myself, the food I am cooking is worth it.  And, between you and me, this turkey tetrazzini is most certainly worth the effort and the wait.

Turkey Tetrazzini

 

Ingredients:

 

3 c. stock - either chicken or turkey

4c. Cooked turkey

12 oz. sliced mushrooms (I did a combination of white and bella)

1 medium onion - chopped

1/2 c. flour

1 c. frozen chopped broccoli

1 c. frozen carrots

1 c. whole milk
1/2 c. sour cream

1/2 c. bread crumbs

1/2 c. parmesan cheese

1/2 c. butter

1 box farfalle noodles - cooked

2 tsp. nutmeg

 

Directions:

 

Cook the farfalle and set aside.  Preheat the oven to 350F.

 

In a 12 inch skillet, melt the butter and saute onions for about 7 minutes (remember the opening rant about tender and translucent).  Add the mushrooms and cook for an additional 10 minutes.  You want the mushrooms to cook down a bit and soften up nicely.

 Add the flour, mixing well to create a paste.  Add the milk then stock, mixing until the paste dissolves completely.  Mix in the sour cream and then simmer until thickened, approximately 15 minutes.  Add the nutmeg and salt and pepper to taste.  Give it a little test but don't be scared by the nutmeg.  When you add the meat and veggies, it all evens out.  Add the turkey and vegetables.

Broccoli and carrots may seem like a weird addition since peas seem to be everyone else's vegetable of choice.  But, the essential elements to a traditional Tetrazzini are poultry, mushrooms, pasta, and parmesan cheese.  Everything added to that is just bonus points and I selected some tasty and colorful veggies as mine.

Give the sauce another taste to make sure you are happy and add in the pasta.  Now, I used a 12 inch skillet and the sauce did fit.  However....I knew for certain that the pasta would create a massive overload situation, so I added the sauce to the pasta that I had put back into its original pot after I strained it through a colander. 

Mmmmmm, I'm hungry already, but wait!  It gets better.  After you get this all nice and mixed up, place it into a 9 x 13 casserole dish.  At this point, mix the bread crumbs and parmesan cheese together and then sprinkle over the casserole.

Into the oven this guy goes, for 30 minutes.  It's ready when the topping has browned and the sauce is bubbly.

The sauce is wonderfully creamy without being too heavy.  This is a great comfort food for a cold day.  The nutmeg provides a nice addition and works well with all the other flavors.  The mushrooms hold up really well and add a nice hearty feel to the entire dish.  Enjoy!



Chicken Paprikas with Galushka Dumplings

The list of countries that I wish to visit one day is so ridiculously long that I cannot justify even the idea of visiting the same place twice.  That being said, my favorite vacation was to Budapest and I would visit it again in a heartbeat.  The city was absolutely amazing.  One week was no where near enough time to see and do everything.  I brought back several souvenirs, one of which I busted out recently.  Can you guess what it was?  I bet you can!

Gundel's Hungarian Cookbook has been sitting among all my other rarely used cookbooks and it was time to rectify that massive culinary injustice.  I chose to make a traditional Hungarian comfort food, chicken paprikas with galushka dumplings.  Of course, after reading through the recipe, I realized it's like going with an old family recipe.  Not everything is entirely spelled out like it would be on the Food Network website, instead you have "cook as if you were making porkolt but you should do this to A instead and add X instead of Y at the end.  Enjoy!"  Really??  However, this book is in its 29th edition, has been around since 1934, and was even translated into Japanese, so who am I to argue?

One last note before I jump into the show and tell portion of this week's main event...I went traditional with this traditional recipe.  I did not try and cut calories so I did use lard for frying up the onions and dumplings.  This is by no means an endorsement of using lard, you might actually get a richer flavor if you went the butter or olive oil route. Me?  I simply chose not to argue with an 80 year old cookbook and decided I could play around once I did it the "right" way.  Plus, I've never cooked with lard before so I could not resist the temptation.

Chicken Paprikas

Ingredients:

7 Tbsp. lard

1/2 c. onions - chopped

2 1/2 tsp. paprika

4 1/2 lbs. chicken - cubed

1 c. green pepper - chopped

1 medium tomato - diced

1/4 c. flour

1 1/4 c. sour cream

Directions:

In a large saute pan, melt lard over medium high heat.  Saute onions until they brown to a light yellow color, approximately 10 minutes. 

Reduce heat and add paprika, stir then add the chicken.  Once the meat begins to brown on all sides, add the green peppers and tomatoes.  Cook the chicken for about a total of 30 minutes.  You want the cubes cooked through and tender.  They should fall apart with just a press of a fork.

Once the chicken is cooked through, add the flour and sour cream.

This amazing pan of tasty Hungarian comfort food should be served over galushka dumplings.

Galushka Dumplings

Ingredients:

4 1/2 c. flour

1 lg egg

1 c. ice cold water (approximate, use more or less as necessary)

6 Tbsp lard

Directions:

Sift the flour into a large bowl.  Make a hollow in the center, cracking the egg into it.  Add water a little bit at a time as you mix ingredients together until it forms a semi-soft dough.  It should easily come off a wooden spoon.

At this point, bring a large pot of water to a rolling boil.  While you wait you can make the dumplings.  If you have a spatzel press this should go fairly quickly. Place small amounts into press, press out spatzel.  If you are like me and do not have a spatzel press you will do this the hard way.  Roll out small amounts of dough into long thin pieces resembling skinny bread sticks.  Cut into small pieces.  Boil in small batches, they will be ready to remove once they float to the top of the water.  If you so choose, melt lard in a pan and give the dumplings a quick fry.

In the picture above you will notice glistening bits of moisture on my stove.  Here is my PSA for the day...lard gets REALLLLLLLY hot and will not smoke the way butter or oil will.  This means you might not realize how hot the lard is until you put in some galushka dumplings and you end up with a volcanic eruption of lard out of the pot.  If I only had a video camera going at that precise moment...oh my.

Thankfully, volcanic eruptions do not affect taste and so no matter what it took to get there, you will have an amazing meal in front of you, perfect for a cold day.