Culinary World Tour: Ireland (Shepherd's Pie)

I bet you thought we forgot all about our culinary world tour, right? Wrong! We actually did the Ireland stop awhile back but I've gotten side tracked with other projects and am just now getting around to posting this. If you want to see the other stops in our tour of world foods, check out the previous entries:

Mexico: Posole
Canada: Poutine
Greenland: Suaasat
Iceland: Lamb Pie with Rye Crust

Heading off from Iceland, we move on next to Ireland. Prior to the Iceland-inspired meal we'd never really used ground lamb before, and it got us hooked! For the Ireland stop of the tour we made a simple but delicious dish: shepherd's pie!

In case you're wondering about the terminology - the names "cottage pie" and "shepherd's pie" mean different things to different people, but we're taking shepherd's pie to mean "made with lamb" and cottage pie to mean "made with beef."

Shepherd's pie includes ingredients that will be both cooked on the skillet and in the stove (much like our previous one-pot meals), so we're using a multi-purpose pan that's oven safe. First we're heating diced onions and carrots in butter on the stovetop.

After the vegetables have time to soften, a pound of ground lamb is thrown in.

Much like when cooking beef, we allow the lamb to brown to ensure it cooks all the way through.

Next up we spoon in a can of tomato paste to add in a little extra flavor and texture.

After cooking for a few minutes we get a much different consistency that's a bit closer to stew.

For our final vegetable additions, we throw in both corn and peas. This is a great time to use that bag of frozen mixed vegetables that's been hiding in the back of the freezer forever.

While the veggies and lamb were cooking, we also made up a decent sized quantity of mashed potatoes. Before going in the oven, we spoon the cooked mashed potatoes over the meat mixture and then pat it down so it forms a smooth "lid" of sorts over the filling. In essence this acts as the top layer that would normally be a crust if we were making a pot pie or something similar.

We're not done with the top yet though - first we've got to shred some cheddar cheese on top!

After baking in the oven we get a golden brown crust that looks and smells delicious!

Dig in with a large spoon and dish up the shephard's pie. This one is a bit on the messy side, so you'll probably want to use a bowl instead of a plate, but make sure to get enough from all three layers!

For other looks at how to make shepherd's pie, check out recipes from Food Network and Allrecipes. We'll be moving our culinary world tour throughout the U.K. and Europe in the coming months, so check back soon!