Inspired shepherd’s pie

One of the side effects of watching Food Network is that I often find myself with urges to take on various cooking challenges mimicking what I see on TV. Heck, they make it seem so easy, right? I have a small bit of skill with cooking. I can do it! When I’m flipping channels one of the shows that airs on Food Network that I will actively stop for is Eat, Shrink & Be Merry. Why that show? Well, they spend one show focusing on a single dish, which is always a healthier version of some restaurant counterpart. The stuff that they make always seems to put up a good fight against the counterpart in a side-by-side taste test. More often than not I’ll come out from watching that show thinking, “hey, I want to try that, too.” You may recall that a while back I successfully made their Shockolate Cheesecake. Low fat cheesecake that tastes rich? How can you lose? Anyway, this week the network aired the episode where they made shepherd’s pie. Well, the recipe seemed simple. It wasn’t that hard of a decision to try it out on my own.

I ventured out to Wal-Mart to gather the ingredients. I wanted to use the Yukon golds like they did, but ultimately I opted for convenience by buying pre-cut cubed potatoes that just needed to be put in the microwave then mashed. I wasn’t keen on peeling a proper butternut squash so I hoped to find something in the freezer aisle, but I came up empty. So, in the end my topping consisted only of potato. Maybe next time, right? For the meat and sauce, they used chili sauce. I decided to use sriracha because that’s what I had on hand. Besides that, sriracha is so flavourful. A little goes a long way. When everything was assembled, they sprinkled some Parmesan cheese on top to get some melted and bubbling action going. For mine I decided to mix in some panko bread crumbs with the Parmesan. I figured that it would make the top even crispier and delicious. Well, how did the end result turn out? Have a look.

I totally made a good call with the panko. The contrast in textures was just amazing. The taste was very balanced and delicious. I’m totally happy with the results. And to think, I didn’t use a single bit of butter or cream for this. Crazy. I swear, the next thing I’m going to tackle from them is their Better Butter Chicken recipe. It’s a bit more involved than this shepherd’s pie, but I want to see how well their spice blend in the recipe works out.

Possibly related posts:

1. Simple pie
2. Stupid pie crusts
3. Pie pun